Daylight Sonata
by Roxxi May
Summary: August, now aged 16, has a girlfriend whom he believes is his soulmate. Although they're at risk for separation, similar to Louis and Lyla. To avoid that unfortunate fate they run away to the streets of NYC, and encounter various people from August's past
1. Daylight Sonata

_A/N: Yeah, you remember me? I'm back… And, as Alice yelled in the middle of the hallway in that one episode of '_The Secret Life of the American Teenager'_, "WE'RE GONNA TRY IT AGAIN!"_

_Just a one-shot for now, then maybe we'll see where I can take it if I decide to. And since I have my TSLOTAT story going (my new no. 1 priority) this won't be updated so bam-bam-bam. This is what I will write on when I have block for the other._

_Disclaimer: Only own the OC's. _

**Daylight Sonata**

"So…you know, this is my first date." Katrina von Bowen twirled a lock of reddish-brown curls around her finger, nervously eyeing the childishly gorgeous boy next to her. They'd done nothing but fidget through awkward small-talk for the last half-hour of their date in Central Park. And the weird part of it all was that they met in a hospital. Katrina's younger sister Aubrey had broken her arm, and August's mom had just suffered a miscarriage. A miscarriage, to which he seemed perfectly numb of the effecting pain. For the first hour of their date, August told her his roller-coaster ride of a life story. After that, the conversation was plagued with long periods of silence.

"Mine, too. I mean…I grew up surrounded by boys, no mom, obviously, so I have no idea what girls are like." He shrugged a little. But he knew. He knew, somehow, about this girl, how she worked, what would be too much and too little with her, etcetera. But that didn't erase the overall crushing weight of awkwardness that first dates were supposed to be accompanied with, anyway. Katrina continued staring at him, eyes caressing all of his features, and he said quietly, "…The baby would've been a girl."

Katrina didn't know how to respond to that; there was nothing comforting to say. She'd seen movies, read books, and heard stories about how marriages fell apart after losing a child. And she'd have to be the biggest idiot in the world to say _that_. So, she, hesitantly, reached out and patted his arm once or twice. The touch made him look at her with eyes that suffocated her. Perhaps she'd done the wrong thing…?

But, no, he smiled--he had his mom's smile--and Katrina was surprised to feel his hair tickle her cheek as he laid his head on her shoulder. She breathed in the scent of it; it smelled like apples and…she took in another breath…ah, coconuts. And it was so soft…

Katrina brought her hand up and put her arm around his waist, pinning him to her. They were already touching, why not experiment with what they could do before it became too much?

"Something I want you to know, Katrina." August began, his newly-changed voice vibrating in her ear. "Know and respect that my life's _not _a happy-peppy Disney movie."

"Duh. I kind of figured that already. Sure you don't wanna sing an HSM tune, though?"

He laughed. "No! But know and respect that it's not right now, and never has been, and never will be. Our life together won't be near to Troy and Gabriella." "Thank God. I don't want our faces on mass-market crap for all eternity." They were know staring each other in the eyes. Katrina was trying to figure out where this speech of his was going. "And…?"

"_And _I'm thinking I want to get away from it. Run away again for a little while." August was so serious, yet he smirked, like he already had it all planned out and knew exactly what he was going to do about it. Katrina thought that was irrational: he couldn't just go wandering off into street life whenever he wanted now that he'd done it once before! But something held her back from protesting. The idea of a two-time run-away boy somehow was very appealing to her.

"You know that your parents will never let you stay in New York just because of me," he continued. "they'll drag you back to Maryland eventually, and you know it. _So_, I was thinking: let's break the cycle known as my non-Disney life story, and do what my parents never got to do before they got separated. I say we run away together, so we never get pulled from each other." He stared openly at her, his bright cobalt blue eyes dragging her down into an abyss, an abyss consisting of only one word. _Yes_. She had to agree. The offer was irresistible.

"Yes." She whispered, helpless. "But, August…how do two sixteen-year-olds go about that?"

"Come on, Katrina, you know! I've done this whole thing once before. It'll be a chunk of rosin! Just follow my lead and it'll be all okay." Katrina liked his musical take on the 'piece of cake' phrase. And he was right; he'd been there, done that. He'd lived on the street for months, at Julliard for even more months, all under one fake name. He'd been August Rush for six whole months, and hadn't gotten caught.

"Okay." she said, and the two shared their first kiss in Central Park, as the breeze blew gently at their hair and clothes. She savored the velvet-y feeling of his lips.

"Hey," August whispered as they pulled apart. A grin pressed dimples into his pale, soft cheeks. "At least we're not making a baby after less than five minutes of knowing each other's first names! It took us two days, one hour, and forty-five minutes to even kiss."

Katrina giggled. "Of course we're not making a baby. It's broad daylight!"

"Sundance!"

"Clouds in your eyes!" Katrina sang.

August smirked again, knowing the clever genius of his next take on the day-to-night comparison between them and his parents. "Daylight Sonata. If I ever get up the nerve to compose another song, it'll be a love theme for us, called _Daylight Sonata_."

"All right, _Rushthoven_." They shared another sweet butterfly kiss on the lips.


	2. Tiptoe to my Lou

_A/N: Yes, my fifth review! I figure if I get more chapters up, the more appealing the fic may look to other viewers, so that's what has got me going at it again. I didn't update because a: lack of reviews, b: lack of ideas, c: a VERY busy schedule (recitals, concerts, violin lessons, school newspaper, etc.) and d: simply a very very very bad case of writer's block. I've been out of the fanfic mood lately, but here I am, once again…_

_Disclaimer: Really? I need to put another one? I don't own AR, etc., etc._

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**Chapter 2: Tiptoe to my Lou**

"And don't forget: Pack lightly yet well, dress warm, and meet me at the arch in Washington Square at 2:30 a.m. 'Kay?" August said in a hushed and secretive tone into his Motorola. "And of course bring your instrument." It was already 11:02, according to the alarm clock on his nightstand. He hadn't even started packing yet.

"Okay. And just how am I, a sweet little red-headed adolescent girl, supposed to get all the way from my grandmother's apartment to Washington Square in the middle of the night without being kidnapped or raped?" Katrina retorted, slightly joking, mostly not.

August was taken aback. How would she? He had only a tinge of worry about that, for he needn't worry much: just a handful went after boys…_right_? Shaking off the thought, he assured her, "Wear a sports bra, I suppose. And pray. Stay close to street lights, don't talk to strangers, avoid dark alleyways, run like hell if you're being chased…and that's all the advice I can give you sweetie. But don't worry." The two exchanged nervous giggles.

Katrina sighed off the last of her jitters. "Alright. But are you absolutely positive you want to do this? Your parents…" she trailed off.

"What about them?"

"They just lost a baby. You're their only child. They sort of need you, don't they?" She twirled one of her frizzy-with-fatigue waves around her finger, nervous for his reaction.

There was a long pause on the other end. "…Well, I mean…Katrina, they--" August stuttered, wishing she would stop with the accusations already. They needed to run away with each other, they just had to! So why wouldn't she stop making him feel so guilty? "They'll be okay, Trina. I know they will. And it's not like it's forever anyway, we're just--Oh, come on. The more you bring it up the more stupid this sounds. Let's stop questioning it and just go through with it. Take a chance. It's better than never being able to physically see each other again, right?"

"Alright, if you say so, Captain." Katrina said, and reassured him that it was okay, that she was just making sure.

"We'd better start packing, then." August balanced the phone in between his ear and shoulder, setting his hands free to start grabbing tees and sweaters and jeans, folding them up tightly as possible so he could stick them in his cello case perhaps, so he didn't need an extra satchel.

"Yeah." Katrina looked around the guest room that she was staying in. August was lucky he got a cello, for all the extra things he might be able to shove in there, but all Katrina got was a flute case in which not even a tube of lip gloss would fit in. "Okay, then, good-bye. Love you."

"Love you too. See you later I guess."

"Yup. Bye."

"Bye." And they hung up.

August opened his closet, and randomly yanked two Aeropostale tees off the hangers, along with two pairs of jeans, a hoodie, and a jacket. In his dresser drawer he located three wads of socks, four pairs of boxers, and…He stopped and stared at the photograph on his nightstand, of him and his mom and his dad on their wedding day. He grabbed that, too, for sentimental sake, but could only fit the tees and socks in his cello case without fear of harming the instrument. Great. He'd have to lug another bag, too. There was his draw-string bag that he used for gym class… if he wore the hoodie and one of the underwear over his current ones, he could fit everything. It certainly was a time to be creatively resourceful.

Katrina didn't have much to pick from. Not at all. So she quickly decided to leave her unnecessary extra clothes (flip flops, abundance of camis, etcetera) behind, to lighten her load, and to just take whatever was left in her suitcase she'd packed for her grandmother's in Maryland. And with the extra room made, she was able to fit her flute in there, also. So just one thing to carry. Not so bad…

She laid herself on the bed, setting the alarm on her phone very quietly for 1:45, so she could take a little nap before she left.

August yawned, but was unable to sleep. He paced back and forth, discreetly, in his room until the clock tolled five past the first hour of the a.m., and he--praying that his parents were asleep, which luckily they were--crept out of the house and into the night. He took the subway to Washington Square, wincing against the germy residue on the train the whole way.

Katrina had no idea of her way around NYC. She needed an expert, like August, only she couldn't call him for help as they'd decided to leave their cell phones behind, so nobody could track them down. Of course, however, the map her grandmother had that Katrina stole was of tremendous aid… She was able to at least catch a train and end up rather near Washington Square, and proceeded to walk the remaining block to the Square.

_Click, clack, click, clack…_

Katrina gasped and whirled around, nearly dropping her bags. She could have swore she heard footsteps behind her, stalking her, ready to _violate _her!

But there was no one there.

It must have been her mind playing tricks on her. She let out a long, collective sigh of relief, but didn't want to take chances; she practically sprinted to the white luminescent glow of the arch, fighting the urge to hug it and kiss it, and searched frantically around for August.

"August?" she called. He wasn't there. "August!" There was no way she could have gotten there first!

Suddenly, and to Katrina's blood-boiling horror, someone grabbed her from behind and yelled, "_Gotcha_!!" Her heart leaped into her heart with the force of a kangaroo, and she froze in terror, unable to choke out more than a surprised squeak of a scream. She instinctively braced for whatever would happen next…before she heard the mischievous giggles from behind her.

"Ha!" August pointed at her, basking in the fulfillment of his devious trick. "I so got you! You should've seen the look on your face…"

Katrina did then scream; not from the scare, but in anger. "Oh, you little…!" she hissed. "August, you douche bag!" --she never thought she'd ever say that overused 'insult,' and at her own boyfriend nonetheless-- "Mark my words, I will get you back! I swear I will!" She took hold of his shoulders and gave him a shove.

"Geez, you don't have to get so violent! Gosh!" There was a small pause of lingering awkwardness, then the two doubled over in hysteric laughter.

Katrina sobered up, abruptly. "Where are we going?" she asked, lightly putting her hand on August's arm, letting him know all was forgiven, so that he might feel more obligated to tell her. "We're not--we're not camping out _here _are we?" Cardboard boxes in Washington Square? She had agreed to run away with him, but never signed up for anything as ridiculous as that!

"Um, around that-a-way." August pointed to his right. "No, wait." Then the other way. "Oh, dear, where was it?" He turned, facing his back to the arch, and pointed to his left, the arch's left. "That-a-way, and I'm positive this time. We're going in _that _direction, fo' shizzle." It also didn't register as making sense in Katrina's mind that August had just uttered the phrase "fo' shizzle" either. "Suppose it won't take long to get there…I hope they'll let us in, in the middle of the night…Ah, they're late-nighters, though. If we hurry…No, wait! The lights are out at 11:00, so we'll be walking in there in the dark, and that place is not the most pleasant thing to judge upon using first impressions in the dark."

"Where are you going with this?" Katrina asked of his rambling.

"I'm coming to the conclusion that we'll have to camp in the alleyway 'till sunrise." August declared, with an apologetic smile.

"What!" Katrina screeched. "An alleyway! In some poor neighborhood near who knows what kind of criminals?!"

August glanced up at the arch, lit up with the glorious history of his conception overlooking it, that full moon nearly seventeen years ago. He sighed. Handling a scared, overwhelmed girl in the midst of a paranoid fit of nerves was not easy when considering what to say next. "I suppose so. Unless you like…want to just roam around until then." he settled on, knowing she wouldn't react well to that either.

"Roam around! And wind up who knows where?!"

"Katrina, there's not many other options! This whole thing isn't going to be safe, risk-free, or anything of that nature. You should've realized that. We've got to take chances, do what we think is best. And the best might not be good at all, but it is the best out of the _options we're given_. You can't be a pansy out here; you gotta be brave! And you're lucky you have me. I came here alone the first time, not even having experienced a city before, held in captivity all my life in the country! You can't even _imagine_!" He bit his lip suddenly, stopping himself from going any farther when he knew he had gotten a little too harsh already.

Katrina folded her arms, nervously shuffling her feet around in the wake of her boyfriend's sharp-edged speech. "You're right." she whispered. "You're right. If I can't be brave, I won't last at all. Let's--let's go to the alleyway."

"Okay." August gently took her hand, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and led her off in the direction of the Fillmore East abandoned theatre.

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_A/N: Sorry it got a little fast-paced and amateur for a while there. Still brushing up on my sensory details. I think I drained myself empty of sensory deets with "Rhapsody in Dreams" which is chocked full of them..._

_Next Chapter: Katrina gets paranoid again, but with something else. August suffers from deja vu._


	3. Do Not Occupy

_A/N: Guess what? I have strep throat! You know what that means, other than the sore misery. I get to stay home from school and write away! So voila, chapter three._

_Disclaimer: __Still_ _don't own AR. But can I have the sequel if they make one? Pretty please?_

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**Chapter 3: Do Not Occupy**

Sunlight arose on the slumbering couple, prying August's eyes open between the shade of his eyelashes. Katrina was curled up next to him, her head on his chest, holding on to him as if for dear life. They'd located the safest, cleanest-looking spot possible in the alleyway, and did their best to stay vigilant before dozing off in spite of themselves.

"Hey, babe." he whispered, lightly poking Katrina's shoulder. "Time to wake up. Come on, let's get our place." _Our place. _What did he mean by that? The Fillmore East--apart from not being legally occupied in the first place--was run by Wizard, the insane street busker who took musically talented kids in as 'investments.' "Come on," he urged his girlfriend, "wake up, now."

Katrina moaned, found that her neck was sore from sleeping in such an awkward position next to August, and stretched awake. "What?" Her eyelids slowly parted in morning fatigue, revealing the warm brown of her irises.

"Let's go." He pointed to the building, hoping she was still too groggy to notice the _Do Not Occupy _sign clearly printed on the door.

"Oh, alright." She didn't sound particularly too enthused to wake up and walk into this crumbling old place, and neither was he admittedly, but it had to be done. He didn't know where else to go. Not only was it the best option, it was their _only _option. Perhaps the safest place, even. They had no other choice. They would have to deal with the negativities and cons and such.

August helped Katrina off the ground, tugging her up carefully by her wrist. "Whatever happens," he advised her, "Don't be afraid. Brace yourself, though: things can get pretty wild in there." She raised her eyebrow and him, as if to say _What do you mean by 'pretty wild?' _"Like, some of the…um, residents are kind of…um, hyper sometimes. There isn't much control. Kind of crazy. So just hold on tight, and stay close, okay?" She swallowed her fear and nodded, determined to convince August with her faux bravery.

The teenage couple worked their way up an extensively tall metal staircase, winding up the side of the building, intimidating Katrina more and more with every step. "Good grief," she panted, out of breath, "How tall is this thing?" She'd just woken up after a night of little sleep. She didn't have the stamina yet to do this hiking.

August chuckled. "We're almost there."

They approached the door, which Katrina noticed said _Do Not Occupy_. "Well, this is certainly legal." she muttered under her breath, quiet enough for August not to notice.

August took in a deep, collective breath, and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall the password. What was it…? Aha! His memory clicked on. "Ready?" he asked the redhead trailing nervously behind him. She nodded skeptically. "Ready or not, here goes." he stated, more to reassure himself that Katrina. He pounded on the door three hand-splitting times; the door was pretty thick.

"What's the password?" someone of the other side hissed. Katrina gasped, and clutched the hem of his shirt, cowering behind him, reciting the Lord's Prayer underneath her breath. Which was a little overboard, but…August couldn't blame her. "Password?" the voice asked again, and August realized he'd been just standing there silent, like a mute retard.

"_Open the damn door already!_" he shouted back. Katrina hid her snicker behind the palm of her hand; that was totally unexpected!

The door clicked open from its locked status, and behind the door, the one that took August's password, was a surprisingly familiar black boy about August's age, with dreadlocks down to his chin. "Well, who do we have here. A few nonmembers who somehow got the password." He paused, giving August a once-over. His eyes widened in shock. "Oh Lord, if it ain't you, August Rush? I'd recognize them dimples anywhere. What brings you back here, Mr. I-found-my-momma-and-daddy-through-music?"

August, knocked speechless by the recognition, found his tongue finally. "It's kind of a long story, Arthur." His voice came out broken and hoarse. He quickly felt around for Katrina's hand and grasped it upon finding it. Her soft skin calmed him, kept him in the present and from having a flashback. "Do you think Wizard will let me come back?"

"I dunno, kid." Arthur replied sympathetically. But then his eyes squinted accusingly, almost, as he noticed a pale attractive red-head behind his long-lost friend. "Who's that with you?"

"I--I'm Katrina. N-n-nice to meet you." Katrina's words were quick, rushed together in a quivering hurry. How did August know this kid?! "I'm with him, I swear!" she burst out suddenly, protecting herself and with a gesture to August.

"Well, I suppose I should let you in, Mr. I found-my-momma-and-daddy-through-music and Miss Katrina." Arthur stepped aside, and Katrina and August crept in, both uneasy. Some blasting death-metal song hit their ears hard, smacking their eardrums senseless. Katrina, although she was sure August didn't have a clue hence his dislike for pop culture, recognized the song as "Duality" by Slip Knot.

But the sight inside was more alarming to Katrina, the reflection of complete and utter chaos. Kids everywhere, ages ranging from as little as around six, and as old as about seventeen. Girls and boys, all homely and smelly, each playing or near a musical instrument of some sort. Some practiced their instruments, others clamored about the place, disrupting everything, like little tornadoes. She held a death grip on August's arm, determined not to let him go and get lost in this sea of insanity.

As if things could get more terrifying. She thought they couldn't, until she looked upon the face of said arm's owner. August's facial expression was perfectly subdued, impassively calm, so incredulous to the surrounding madness. Except for his eyes, which were pinkish and filled with tears. He blinked fast, trying to hold them back.

_I came here alone the first time, not even having experienced a city before, held in captivity all my life in the country! You can't even imagine! _his words echoed in her head, mocking her, torturing her. The world tilted, and her concern for him consumed all her fear and swept it away. Her main goal now was not to escape the surroundings, but to make it better for him.

"Alright! Alright! Kids, shut the hell up and show me your profits!" a male voice with a thin Southern accent bellowed. Katrina's heart did the kangaroo-jump again, and she tried to keep August's high-pitched gasp of horror from affecting her too much. Stay strong, stay strong…

"Don't be scared, Trina." August whispered in her ear, and wiped his tears away before anyone else would notice. "That's Wizard. He's like the ring-leader around here. Don't get on his bad side. 'Kay?"

Katrina was about to respond, when she was cut off by the bellowing voice directed _at them_. "And who do we have here?" He was crazy. Another kangaroo-jump of her heart. She held on to August again, despite that he was weak too. She could feel him trembling, his skin burning hot. "August!" She felt him nearly leap out of his skin. "August, my boy, it's been what? Five whole years? Damn, you've grown! What, you think you wanna come back now? Did your mommy and daddy not want you anymore?" His tone was cordial at first, but then mocking and malicious.

"N-no, they still want m-m-me." August said, his voice breaking again. "I--I came to--to get away f-for a while. W-with Katrina."

"Did you really?" Wizard retorted. "Can you still play?"

"Oh, of course, and so can she. See, we even brought our own instruments." He was easing up now, like he remembered how to handle this. He held up his cello case, and gestured to Katrina's flute.

"Collection will have to wait, kids. I have business to take care of. August, Courtney, come along." Wizard motioned for them to come with.

"Um, it's Katrina."

"Whatever." And they went to a back room, where Katrina and August were directed to 'audition.' By which Wizard meant for them to play a song, to make sure that they were of musical value to make 'profit.'

"So, play for me, kid." Wizard said to August, who was getting his cello out of its case.

"Like what?" August asked, taking a seat and situating the cello between his knees.

"Like anything to your soul's content, little man."

August smiled at Katrina, who was waiting for her turn with her flute in the distant corner. "Okay." And he touched the bow to the strings, and played out the _Prelude to the Bach Cello Suite No. 1_. With the fluidity of his notes and the music filling his soul, he closed his eyes and forgot what he was doing and why he was playing. He always did that.

Katrina stood there in the corner, mesmerized. She'd never seen August play before, for the short amount of time that they'd been together. She knew he would be good when she did get to hear him play for the first time, but never had she expected something so astonishingly gifted. It was like Yo-Yo Ma died and his spirit was possessing August in a burst of cello wonder.

"Bravo! Bravo!" Wizard cried out when August had finished. "Welcome back, August. And I won't ask questions as to why you came again. Don't wanna scare you away or anything." August let out a sigh of relief, and put his cello back. Wizard turned to Katrina. "Now you, little lady."

Katrina was no prodigy. Sure, she was talented, and yes, she had some amount of music in her soul, but she compared as nothing to the Mozart-like greatness of August. _Pick something easy_, she told herself. How about… _Clair de Lune_? The piece was originally for piano, but Katrina had adapted notes by ear to her flute one snow day off of school. She brought the flute to her lips and blew out the flowing breathy notes. August smirked amidst his discomfort, recognizing the song immediately.

"Marvelous, marvelous. You're in too, Courtney." Wizard applauded in his approval.

"It's Katrina."

"Whatever. Welcome to the family, kids." Wizard placed leather-chain necklaces with star-shaped pendants around their necks. Katrina assumed it was some kind of marking, branding, that separated the kids here from the ones…out there.

"Welcome to the family." August echoed absent-mindedly.

* * *

_A/N: Again, sorry for the brief lack of detail. Anyway, I want you all to know that reviews make my day and make it so much easier to keep going when I know people like what I do and want me to continue. So review, please!_

_Next Chapter: August and Arthur catch up on the past five years, and Katrina makes a friend as well._


	4. Social Butterflies

_A/N: Hooray for fast updates! That's all I can say really…_

_Disclaimer: Same as last chapter._

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**Chapter 4: Social Butterflies**

"So, what exactly inspired you to quit guitar and pick up cello?" Katrina asked August, once they had settled in to their spot in the theatre. They had picked a large-ish spot tucked towards the back, on the balcony overlooking the extensive grand hall. They were pretty well hidden; they had created a jungle-like maze of old musty furniture that one would have to work through to reach them. It was of utmost privacy, and satisfyingly cozy.

"Well…" August began, "First off, you can never play too many instruments. For another, I wanted to play in an orchestra, and you won't see too many guitars in an orchestra. And I loved the sounds of the cello…I always thought of chocolate when I heard a cello. It was rich and warm and inviting. It gave me chills when I heard my mom play…" He rambled on and on and on about his philosophy of the cello, and Katrina willingly listened. It never took much to get August to just talk. To go on about something in his own little poetic prose. One of the things she liked best about him.

"…Why'd you pick flute?" He retaliated after finally reaching his concluding sentence.

"I didn't pick. I was five years old! So they gave me my flute and I was like, 'Uh…I'd rather play hopscotch' or whatever at first but then I really took to it." Katrina wouldn't lie just to impress him. She wouldn't say 'it became my life and I advanced like crazy,' when in fact it wasn't the case. It seemed to her like he would be able to see straight through the lie and become frustrated with her for not treating him like a 'normal' person, as he called it, like he was some kind of alien.

August nodded. "Understandable."

The _Maple Leaf Rag _wafted through the air to their hiding place from the speakers below. Quite a difference from the heavy metal of earlier. But Katrina had found that music was always playing around there; be it live or through the speakers. And the genres ranged everywhere from jazz to metal to AC/DC to Mozart. Katrina's taste in music was gradually expanding, and August's too, of course.

"Yo, lovebirds." Arthur called, suddenly appearing from the last corner of their maze. "Why don't you come out here and socialize for once?"

"It's more tranquil up here." August said, accurately voicing Katrina's thoughts. But then he sighed. "But maybe we should come out for a while. We've got to get used to things. We can't hide up here forever, right?" He ignored Katrina's pleading look, took her by the hand, and led her back downstairs.

"They're really in love, aren't they?" Eighteen-year-old Shanice McDowell whispered to Arthur, as Katrina and August roamed about the corridors, pretending to be focused on anyone but each other. "They new kids? Or, rather, the new girl and our returnee."

"Yup, they sure are. Why ain't you trying to fix yourself up with someone, Miss I-have-a-bank-account-under-a-fake-name-in-which-I-hide-money-from-Wizard?"

Shanice sighed, noticing how the girl had a death grip on August Rush's hand, forcing a terrible smile overtop her discomfort. "I have other priorities."

She suddenly noticed the red-headed girl that came with August was shaking her hand, introducing herself in a quick and nervous way. "Hi I'm Katrina yes I came here with August I don't think I've seen you here before no of course I haven't well nice to meet you."

Shanice laughed. "Whoa, slow down, girl. You don't have to be so nervous. Nobody's gonna hurt you, alright?"

A real, soft smile graced the girl's face. "Good." was all she said.

"You got any friends here?" Shanice asked. Katrina opened her mouth to speak and began to gesture towards August. "I mean _besides _him?" she cut her off.

Katrina blushed and folded her arms in a defensive, shy way. "No, not really. Just August."

"Hey," Arthur interrupted in an offended tone, "what about me? Aren't we cool?"

Katrina laughed and smacked her forehead. "Yeah, of course! Yeah, I forgot. We're cool."

Shanice patted Katrina's shoulder. "Well, you can count me as your first _gal pal _around here."

"Okay." Katrina grinned widely, glad for knowing someone who would understand her most of the time when she was going on about 'girly things,' as August called it.

"So, what's your opinion on…how about...Robert Pattinson? I suppose that's a good place to start a conversation." Shanice offered.

"Too overrated. The Twilight books are great. But it gets annoying after the hundredth 'Oooh, I love you Rob!!' from all the fan girls."

"Same here. Jonas Brothers?"

"Too hyped up; they sing like they're constipated."

"Zac Efron?"

"August has more talent in the nucleus of one cell than Zac does in his entire body."

"Miley Cyrus?"

"Ugh!! Don't _even _get me started!"

"Barack Obama?"

"Best president ever! Barack 'n' Roll!"

"Mozart?"

"Coolest guy ever!!"

Shanice nodded in approval. She and this weird skittish little girl had a lot in common. "Good." she said, "You and I see eye-to-eye on most things." Katrina was glancing over her shoulder, sneaking a quick glance at her boyfriend. It was like she worshipped the ground he walked on. Totally smitten. "Really love him, don't you?"

"With all my heart." Katrina said, taking in a deep breath and sighing it out. There was a period of collective silence before she grinned mischievously and spoke again. "My boyfriend is better than Nick Jonas, Joe Jonas, Kevin Jonas and _Edward Cullen_…combined!"

Shanice burst out laughing. "Well said, lady. Well said."

August smiled contentedly at Katrina from afar, who was chatting away with another girl he didn't recognize. Good, she finally made a friend, so maybe she wouldn't be following him around everywhere like a puppy. Sure, it was kind of cute, and flattering when she did that, but at some points he felt like he might suffocate. Now if he could rekindle his alliance with Arthur, that'd be awesome.

"You gotta tell me." As if on cue, Arthur popped in out of nowhere and demanded, "What the hell have you been up to in the past five years?"

August stood, silent. It was a question he'd been waiting for someone (_besides_ Katrina, who already knew the story) to ask him, so he could get it out of his system and start anew. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, and let it all spill out in one big paragraph, "Well I found my parents that night you whacked Wizard with the guitar. I don't really remember what happened as we all…reconciled. It was a blur. I think I might've passed out. I picked up cello, as you noticed. My mom has been teaching me since I suggested it when I was twelve. She says I'm better than her already. I've been going to regular school; I couldn't handle the pressure at Julliard. It's huge: 400 in my sophomore class alone. I don't have many close friends there, just a few pals from advanced orchestra."

Arthur listened in with interest. The life of the prodigy he picked up off the street in Washington Square five years ago. This was too interesting.

August ran his fingers through his hair and continued, "Nothing really super duper big occurred until Mom got pregnant again shortly after I turned sixteen in December--"

"Whoa whoa, wait a minute. Bro, you mean to tell me you've got a baby sibling now? And you ran away from _that_?"

"No, I don't have a baby sibling." August said quietly, knowing exactly where this was going and not wanting to continue with it.

"But you said--"

"I don't have a baby sibling," August seethed to clenched teeth, "because my baby sister was a stillborn at seven months in. Five. Days. Ago." He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to numb himself with thoughts of Katrina. He pictured her on the beach, in the rain, smiling and laughing and twirling about. _Tell me, _vision-Katrina asked him, _what is the function of rosin, exactly? Why do string players have to use it? _

_To make the bow hair sticky, _he answered._ It makes the strings vibrate more. The sound will be better. _

Arthur laid his grubby hand on August's shoulder. "Oh, man, I'm real sorry, dude. That sucks. You okay?"

August shook himself out of la-la land, and answered, "Yes. I'm okay. Anyway, I met _her _at the hospital that day, in the lobby. I was a sobbing mess and she offered me a tissue." He chuckled and shook his head. "That's typical. Woe-is-me August picks up his soul-mate by blubbering his eyes out and collecting tissues from a pretty girl."

"Whoa! Man, you two have known each other for only _five days_? Five days! Damn, that's fast! And you're calling her your soul-mate already?"

"Well, I was conceived within five minutes of Mom and Dad knowing each other's first names. Quick spontaneous relationships run in my blood, I guess."

"And how the hell would you know that--"

August was interrupted from his conversation by a tap on his shoulder. It was Katrina. "I still have that tissue, you know. For good luck." she declared, grinning.

August raised one eyebrow, and laughed at her obvious fetish for sentiment. "Wow, Trina, _that's_…a little crazy." He collected her in a tight embrace, and she clung on. They just fit so well in each other's arms: he was only about two inches taller than her, just enough to feel protective of her; but he was still short, skinny and diminutive enough for her to feel protective of him. It was a fair deal.

Shanice and Arthur looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Lovebirds." they muttered in unison.

* * *

_A/N: Ah, teenage love. Anyway, don't be offended or whatever by the conversation between Shanice and Katrina. Just my opinion, be open-minded. I probably won't update tomorrow because I have a clarinet recital, and a new episode of Secret Life of the American Teenager I've got to watch!_

_Next chapter: A short time-lapse. Lyla, Louis, and Mr. and Mrs. von Bowen go out searching for their kids._


	5. Because I'm July Rush!

_A/N: Eh, maybe not a clarinet recital tonight. I have strep, remember. There are like spots on the back of my throat (no mean to get graphic but…) and my mom's not letting me go to school or the recital (there goes 100 band points down the drain. F ahoy!) so I guess I had lots of free-time and I updated. Woo!_

_Disclaimer: Same as last chapter, and the one before that…_

* * *

**Chapter 5: Because I Am July Rush!**

_Three weeks later_

Lyla laid sprawled out on the blue-and-green-striped comforter of her son's bed, breathing in the scent of the pillows. He'd turned up missing, for God's sake. Where had he gone? Why?

The disappearance was obviously deliberate. Possessions, including his own instrument, were gone along with him. The photo the kept of the three of them on his nightstand was gone.

August had run away again. And it was obviously to escape the pain of losing his little sister, wasn't it? At least that was Lyla's miserable assumption. This just goes to show you: one bird in the hand equals two in the bush. She'd aimed for two and lost the one she did have, and she was left with none at all.

Louis took it so impassively, just shrugging the whole thing off, not exposing a hint of emotion, just blank. And it irritated Lyla that he could pull that off, and she couldn't; that she had no choice but to let her own misery show through her attempts to stay strong, that she couldn't be cool and collected like that, too. She pulled a pillow to her chest and squeezed it tightly, realizing that she was indeed where August got that trait from.

"We should go out looking for him, you know." Lyla suggested after coming out of August's bedroom and taking a place next to her husband at the kitchen table. "I have a few ideas of where he might've gone."

"Lyla…" Louis sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Wherever he's gone, I'm pretty sure he's okay. And he doesn't want to be found. He wouldn't just take off if he didn't want to. He's not stupid like that."

Lyla put her head in her hands, defeated, exhausted. She'd just have to go out looking for August alone later on. And come up with a lie for why she was leaving the house. A good one so Louis wouldn't ask questions…Maybe she could get NBC or CNN or CBS or…MSN or… some kind of TV station to broadcast an emergency search!

Preferably CBS because the Early Show did a special on the three the morning after the concert, telling the epic story on how the all…reconciled. They'd gladly do a special on how that very kid has turned up missing again, play old footage of him from their interview in slow motion with melodramatic piano melodies in the background, and the solemn reporter would plead people to search for him. They'd show Lyla, surrounded by cameras and microphones, sobbing about her worries for her little boy. "Please help me find my baby!!" she'd wail.

It took her a few moments to realize she'd just uttered that suggestion out loud. "Could we?" she asked, like a little girl asking to go to the pet store.

"It wouldn't be a good idea, considering all the paparazzi crap we'd have to put up with when we do find him, but…I dunno, Lyla, you're his mum, you decide what's best."

"Let's do it." she confirmed, grabbed a recent and gorgeous photo of him, along with her car keys, and headed out the door into the green sunny day.

-----

"Maybe she ran away with a pedophile who seduced her." Aubrey von Bowen suggested fatly, picking at her arm cast.

"Maybe you should stop coming up with ideas that are upsetting your mother." her father David retorted, pacing back and forth in his mother's apartment, bewildered as to the disappearance of his beautiful oldest daughter Katrina.

"Just saying. It's a possibility."

"Well, we're stuck here in New York until we find her, so no deadpanning is going to get you back to Maryland, young lady."

Holly von Bowen hung up the phone in the living room with an irritated _smack_. "Well, here come the paparazzi woes." she muttered to her family. "Guess what? CBS wants to do a report on Katrina's going missing. Camera crews will be here any minute." She shook her head. "Maybe that's a good thing though. Advertise ourselves so people will feel sorry for us and give her back…" She shook her head again, more irritably this time, and yelled, "Damn New York overpopulation! Oh, what are the chances of us finding her in the midst of this… this overpopulated jungle full of criminals, murderers, rapists…" she cried in despair.

"Mom, calm down. Katrina knows survival tactics." Aubrey said. "Or maybe she ran off…_with a boy she liked_." she drawled with a waggle of her eyebrows, with no idea whatsoever of how correct she was. "A consensual thing. A guy her age she knew we'd drag her away from when it was time to go back home. Maybe--" she broke off and shrugged. "Nah. Probably not. Katrina would never agree to that--"

"Would you just _stop _already?" Mrs. Von Bowen screeched, covering her ears with her hands.

Aubrey threw her hands in the air, giving up. "Just saying. It's a possibility."

-----

_Back at the Fillmore East…_

"POCKETS!!" Wizard bellowed, calling upon the kids to reveal their street-performing collections for the day. "Good job… good job… nice work, Hadley… do better next time…gracias Arthur…" he turned to August and Katrina. "And you two?"

"Um, we…didn't go out today. We're…_practicing_. To make sure we're real good for when we, uh…do play." Katrina offered, while August flushed pale and went into a round of stuttering. And that was the truth.

"Fine. Be out tomorrow. And there better be good profits, then."

"See? That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Katrina asked August once they were back in their private sliver of balcony. She put her arm around his shoulder and rubbed his arm. The poor thing was more skittish than she was these days. "Just gotta… play it cool, don't we?" He nodded stiffly.

"H--how do you do that?" he whispered, a soft hint of his audible voice subtly penetrating the whisper. "You're a lot braver lately." His eyes widened, studying her with wonder like a toddler staring down a toy store.

Katrina shrugged, and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You can't be a pansy out here. You have to be brave if you want to last even this long."

August shrank back and flinched, deeply affected by the sound of his own words being brought back down on him. In his shame, he couldn't look Katrina in the eye as he said in a voice even less audible, "I'm real sorry 'bout that. I guess my patience were thin that night… and I thought this would be easier for me." The light surrounding them was an ever-growing dim, as it was getting darker outside, real fast, and the lack of light fixtures around the theatre. "I'm so sorry." he whispered again, perfectly inaudible this time so that he pretty much mouthed it.

"Don't be sorry." Katrina replied in the same sugary tone that a mother would use when saying _Of course there aren't monsters in the closet!_ "I'm glad you chewed me out. It woke me up. Besides, you can't sugarcoat in a relationship; I've overheard my mom telling my dad that many times." She nuzzled his cheek at the same time she stroked his hair, and refused to scold herself for smothering him. Babying him was her favorite pass-time, and nothing could stop her, even if she did take it too far every once and a while…

"Hey," he said, his voice returning, and tried to nudge her away. "ease up, woman! Stop it!" Katrina giggled and hugged him even tighter, covered his face with even sloppier kisses. "Stop! Ah!" They tumbled to the floor, wrestling each other, August for freedom and Katrina for more cuddles. They rolled about on the floor until she took over and laid on top of him, rubbing her nose on his in an overzealous Eskimo kiss. "Ah! Get…off…!"

"NEVER!" she cried, pinning him down and tangling her fingers deep in his hair, caressing it by the fistful. August wrapped his legs around her waist and tried to roll over so he would be on top, and gain control. Katrina squealed in girlish delight. "You'll never defeat me! Because I am…" a dramatic pause. "_Mrs. July Rush_!"

"Why--July?" he asked, out of breath from the ongoing struggle.

"Because July comes before August, so I have a one-up over you!"

"No, I think not. You're _September Rush_!" he shouted, and with a burst of strength, he was able to roll Katrina over on her back, pin her down, and lift himself up on top. "Ha!"

Katrina squealed again and lifted her arms up, admitting defeat. "Alright, alright, alright! I'm September!"

"You bet you are." August giggled, and kissed her before getting off of her.

* * *

_Ooh, got a little carried away with the playfulness scene didn't I? And a little neglectful of the parents' scenes. Meh. Ah, better luck next time. And now I can smell my F in band coming from just around the corner. _

_Anyway, __**review, please**__!! For I am freaking JANUARY Rush!!_

_Next Chapter: Katrina street performs for the first time, and August experiences an "epiphany."_


	6. Five Syllables, Thirteen Letters

_A/N: SNOW DAY! So I whipped this up within two hours. Expect the central driving plot to really heat up starting next chapter. That's all I'm saying for now…_

_Disclaimer: same as last chapter._

* * *

**Chapter 6: Five Syllables, Thirteen Letters**

"Nervous?" Shanice asked Katrina, who was trying unsuccessfully to fix her wild hair in a fairly decent up-do. Today was the day of Katrina's first street performance, and in no ways was she ready. It wasn't the music she was worried about; she'd been practicing like mad. It was the fact that she was still afraid of the roller-coaster gut feeling of being exposed, towered upon by hundreds of skyscrapers, up there playing for profit in front of an abundance of disinterested people.

"Ah, just a little." she replied, facetiously rolling her eyes. "We should perform together." she then muttered absent-mindedly.

Shanice began tuning the near-broken strings of her violin. "What do you mean by 'we?' You and me, or you and August?"

"Either one of you! You both have experience in this…field. I have none whatsoever. All I've done is nonprofit recitals in front of crowds of, like, twenty in secluded, heated buildings. This is not going to be the easiest transition."

Shanice chuckled thoughtfully, obviously remembering something. "Ah, I remember that little guy from last time he was here." She shook her head, observing how much he'd changed. "Little mystery he was. He just showed up here with Arthur, who'd made him buy a pizza. He was like 'I followed the music and that's how I ended up here!' and we all laughed at him. That morning we awoke to him bashing out a tune on Roxxi the guitar. He was a freaking prodigy! You know Wizard took him in willingly after that. Little Evan Taylor became August Rush and…"

Katrina knitted her eyebrows. "What…? Evan Taylor? His name's always been August, hasn't it?"

"Uh, no! Ask Arthur, even. His name was Evan when he came. That's his birth name! I'm not joking."

Katrina shrugged it off, making a mental note never to ask him about it, for it'd probably make him uncomfortable. He was August now. That's all that mattered to Katrina.

Or, not really. But-- Oh, never mind. "New subject." she suggested.

-----

August lightly fingered notes from the Shostakovich Cello Concerto on the fingerboard of his cello. Not the best piece for street performing, considering how awkwardly angry the mood of it was. Dissonant pounding of the bow on the strings, sharp-and-flat-then-natural messes galore.

And, for some reason, he couldn't play it without making "sex faces" as Katrina had pointed out with a burst of laughter. Apparently, he got so enveloped on the musical emotion, he tipped his head back and scrunched his face up in a way that suggested sexual pleasure.

"Pervert." was all he'd said in response to that. Then they discussed how Yo-Yo Ma always looked like he was in pain, and Rostropovich looked fairly blank at times, and angry at others. Jacqueline Du Pre had had a wide range of expressions, and August's mother Lyla appeared to be having too much fun, with her smiling and bobbing of her head.

Maybe he'd go back to the art of improvising as he went along, creating things as people cheered him on, not knowing what he was going to do next. He'd start out slower, prettier, then gradually fade into faster, with a more tribal feel, and faster and faster yet, to really rake in the cash.

But he'd gotten so used to reading music off of paper during the last five years, perhaps he'd forgotten _how _to improvise.

He would just have to figure that out later. Right now, it was time to take off into the day, into the foggy cloudy day, and revive himself as "that cute little street-performing prodigy."

Where to?

Washington Square? No; too obvious. Too cliché. By the Hudson River? Was that even legal? How about near Lincoln Center? No, some Julliard professor would pick him up, recognizing him, and send him back to his parents…which for the first time in his life _wasn't _what he wanted to happen.

New York was a big place. So many possibilities, so many people, and yet he couldn't figure out where to perform.

Wait! How about that place he played Michael Hedges' "Ritual Dance" at that one time? August didn't remember what that was called, or why it was a good spot in the first place, but he did, somehow, remember how to get there.

With his cello case slung over his shoulder, and déjà vu creeping up on him again, he headed off in its direction, in a reasonless hurry.

-----

Katrina touched up the final smiley face on the piece of cardboard she'd decided to make a sign out of. It said _Come see, Come see, the Flute Concerts played by the Musical Maiden, AUGUSTA EVANNA! _in Katrina's awkward cursive with a near-dry Sharpie pen she'd just found. She quickly came up with her stage name out of feminine forms of her boyfriend's…two names. She would talk with a fake Swedish accent (she always impressed her friends back in Maryland with her good imitation) and pronounce her "first name" ah-goo-stah instead of aw-gust-ah as she normally would.

For the fact that she needed to obtain money, she figured she'd add: _(donations appreciated) _in smaller print under her name as a reminder to people that they were supposed to drop cash in the coffee tin next to her.

_Okay… here goes nothing_, she thought. She brought her flute to her lips, tried not to close her eyes, and played some of Mozart's Flute Concerto. A sympathetic looking woman dropped by and placed a five-dollar bill in the tin.

"Thank you." Katrina mouthed in-between notes. An emo boy dropped a couple of quarters in. So $5.50 within three minutes. She wasn't doing so bad…

Eventually, with a so far total of $23.55, she was running out of things to play. She didn't know so much without sheet music, which she'd unfortunately been trained to rely on. She'd never had to memorize a piece before. Only once or twice for marching band at her school.

One word popped in her mind. Five syllables, thirteen letters. _Improvisation_. She was being forced to channel her inner Ah-goost and make something up in her mind as she went along.

She played three notes, three descending notes. And again, only the last note was a half-step lower this time. She repeated it. Her inner Ah-goost shivered in excitement; maybe she had a knack for this improvisation thing after all. Finding a few notes, trying to locate a few specific pitches, she played very softly a beautiful slow tune she'd overheard August humming one time. A tune he said he used in his Rhapsody that he composed, the one that Katrina had heard only once or twice before.

Katrina stopped abruptly, and a man in a business suit applauded her. "Good job!" he said, and dropped a ten in. She then smiled, but not because her total now was $36.70, but because, perhaps, she realized…

Perhaps she had more of a connection to August than she originally estimated.

-----

A humongous crowd surrounded him from all sides, smiling endearingly, exchanging glances of _Isn't he wonderful? _August was running out of improvisation ideas after three long hours, and was busy praying to God that no one would recognize him and turn him in.

He abruptly chopped his ecstatic sixteenth notes off and resumed slow serenading. He became a normal player again. The crowd thinned a little, growing bored and confused with his sudden stop of prodigy wonder.

Quickly thinking up an elevator-worthy jazz pizzicato, the crowd dropped final offerings of coins in and left, gradually dying away.

"You know what, Trina?" he inquired thoughtfully later on as they retreated up the extensive metal steps to the theatre. "I think today is the first day of the rest of my life. I think today I'll start thinking about perhaps composing my second piece…_Open the damn door already!_…and then another, and another…and before long I'll achieve such greatness, they'll be playing my stuff in concert halls three hundred years from now. I'm the next Vivaldi."

"Yesterday you were Mozart. The other day you were Elgar. And on our first date you were Beethoven. Now you're Vivaldi. Make up your mind! Who _are _you?"

"I'm Rostropovich back from the dead!" he declared in a high-pitched ghostly tone.

"So now Rostropovich makes sex faces when he plays? I dunno, but I think I'm having trouble keeping up with things around here." August shot her a dry look. "Anyway, so you're going to compose our Daylight Sonata, then?" she asked with a hopeful look upon her face.

August nodded proudly. "Yes. But I'll probably call it something else officially--I don't want the spirit of Beethoven to sue me--but we'll call it that. The title 'Daylight Sonata' will be our little thing." he added with a playful wink that made Katrina's heart kangaroo-jump, but for a completely different reason than normal.

"And this is the first day of the rest of your life?" she made for sure.

"Yup."

"With me?" she asked quietly.

August's creative smile faded away. Katrina's palm started to sweat in his as they held hands. "…Yes." he answered quickly, pretending he didn't hesitate. "Of course."

* * *

_A/N: Uh oh! Does August have cold feet on this? You'll have to wait and see!_

_Next chapter: August gets a bout of homesickness, Katrina confides in him what she was able to improvise while performing, and August takes the relationship to the next level, despite his second thoughts..._

**EDIT: 4/2/09: Continuity issue!! A specific statement in this chapter contradicted one made in a later chapter. Since the later satement was more vital, I changed this one.**


	7. Hitting the News

_A/N: Wow, three updates within 24 hours, and ten whole reviews so far!! I want to thank all who has reviewed (most cordially to Zombie's Run This Town and Lilliana265 as they have reviewed multiple times)._

_Disclaimer: I don't own AR, yada yada. And I don't own any of the songs I may mention in this chapter or have mentioned ever…_

_P.S. this chapter as well as the next few are the reasons why this is rated T. Hint, hint._

* * *

**Chapter 7: Hitting the News**

"Yesterday I told her that I'm re-starting my life…with her at my side." August spilled sloppily to Arthur, who was being Dr. Phil for the moment. "But I think that meant something even deeper to her. I think she thinks that I want to marry her right out of high school or something now. And I love her, I really do, but… God, this is so fast." He rubbed his aching forehead.

"See? What'd I tell you?" Arthur said, offering no sympathy. "Fast relationships end up nowhere. You parents, they were the exception. That doesn't mean you're an exception too. You're just the result of the exception. I say you two are headed down a very dark road." he concluded with the mystic tone of a fortune-teller.

"No!" August cried, feeling a stab of pain in his chest at just the thought of it. "No, there's gotta be something else, a way…"

Arthur rolled his eyes, preparing for another hour of ranting from August. "Look. August, I ain't a relationship expert. I'm not the e-Harmony guy. I have no experience dating, nonetheless breaking up or hitting bumps or whatever the hell's going on between you two."

"But I--"

"But nothin'!" Arthur started to storm out, then turned back for a moment to gently reassure his friend, "Like I said, I'm not expert, but my advice would be to tell her the truth. Don't hide things from her. Girls don't like that. Tell her how you feel and see ways you can work it out."

"Really?"

"Really." That time he did exit, leaving August alone to his very miserable and confused thoughts.

_You're just the result of the exception. _And at that moment, August could very well be living with that exception, in his own room in his warm bed, IM'ing Katrina who'd have long gone back to Maryland by this time. He'd be helping his mom and dad through the pain of losing their baby. It was summer vacation still, and he missed the sound of Lyla's flip-flops slapping the backs of her heels as she pretended to "tend to the yard" but really was just enjoying the sun.

And maybe he wouldn't be so confused and overwhelmed at this moment. He'd be living his regular day-to-day life instead of being back in Square One yet so far beyond that.

But he had to be naïve and suggest that he and his girlfriend of then two days try to pursue a runaway love headed for the pits of hell.

-----

"There you are!" that sugary voice rung in his ear, giving him hope and bewildering him even more.

Katrina laid her hand on her beloved's knee, noticing that he looked a little pale. She felt his forehead with the back of her hand. "You're not going to get sick on me, are you, babe?" She kissed him, anyway, despite the possibility of his illness.

August kissed back for a moment then broke away. "No. Just…a little tired, that's all. The epiphany thing is exhausting." He gave a little smirk, to remind her of his 'promise.' "So how did performing go for _you _yesterday? All we did was talk about me."

Katrina took in a deep smitten breath and sighed it out, like a middle schooler going batty over a shirtless picture of--insert name of random heartthrob--. "It was beyond amazing. You know I'm getting better at improvisation?"

Improvisation. To make something up as you go along, from pure creativity and pretty much nothing but your extensive imagination to help you. A pure reflection of you style, background, and whatever else that defines you. Knowing that no sheet music was there to help you out. You were on your own.

"That's good." August said, smiling weakly.

"And you'll never guess what I came up with." she grabbed her flute and played what she'd figured out the previous day. August's eyes grew huge, like two watery blue orbs, and sparkled with the instant recognition of his family's theme. "It reminds me of you." The segment of his Rhapsody that played right after the Moondance segment. And he'd never her told anything about it. Could there be a similar connection between them as he had with Louis and Lyla?

"That's beautiful, Trina." he choked out.

"Yeah. And I got nearly forty dollars out of it, plus a few other pieces, of course. How much did you get again?"

August hesitated. "…Sixty-two, right on the nose." Katrina grinned in proud approval of her boyfriend's gift.

There was a small click from the speakers on the lower floor of the theatre, and a deep, slow series of up-down arpeggios played by an electric guitar marked the beginning of "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica, softly heard to them from the seclusion of their balcony. Katrina's smile deepened.

_So close, no matter how far/ couldn't be much more from the heart/ forever trust in who we are/ and nothing else matters…_ "My dad and I used to slow dance to this song when I was a little girl. I'd stand up on his feet and we'd go about the living room. My mom would even hum it to Aubrey when she was a baby. It's kind of like the song for our family the way 'Moondance' is for yours."

"It's real pretty." August murmured, closing his eyes and taking it in. It really was beautiful. And romantic.

_Never opened myself this way/ life is ours, we live it our way/ oh these words I don't just say/ and nothing else matters…_ A good edgy love song from a band that didn't do that too often. Before he knew what he was doing, August was leaning in slowly, sensually, parting Katrina's mouth open with his kiss. Perhaps he was getting swept up in the current of the emotion of the music again, but suddenly every bit of warm molten love he'd ever felt for her was washing back on him again in a tidal wave.

He was aware they were making that _kluh-smuch _sound that he'd only heard on TV before when the two people were making out. But here they were, and that noise was coming from them. They were making it happen; this wasn't a soap opera, as much as it seemed like it at times.

A little squeal emitted from Katrina's throat. She yanked August closer to her by his shirt collar. She lowered herself onto his lap and let the squeal come out again. "August…" she moaned inaudibly as he fumbled with the hem of her shirt.

"Trina…" he gasped, and came closer yet. He lifted Katrina's shirt off over her head, and she returned the action in a delicate method of her own.

He focused in on the _kluh-smuch _sound, and lost himself up in the current of his own emotion

-----

"_Could _their disappearances be _related_?" The skeptical news reporter emphasized on the first and last words of the sentence, her otherwise disinterested tone was found to be horribly annoying to Lyla. If they were going to pretend to be sympathetic about her son's going missing--as well as some girl's--then they'd better be good at it.

"How _could _that _be_?" Louis deadpanned in a mock of the reporter's unnecessary emphasis. "_Could _they have run off _together_?"

"I highly doubt it." Lyla said with no emotion whatsoever.

The CNN news report seemed to drag on forever. They repeated themselves over and over, and showed the same pictures of August and that girl over and over, with the same captions, and restated the same theories. The official story now was that August and Katrina von Bowen were kidnapped by the same bisexual pedophile that went after both genders, and they were currently being held captive as sex slaves. "Lovely." Lyla sighed. "Keep guessing, guys. But why would August bring possessions with him if he were to become a sex slave?"

"The press doesn't know that yet, perhaps?"

"I told CBS that. And they reported it. But they only had like a minute's worth of story on the girl. It was all him. They said that it was probably just a coincidence."

"So, CBS knows he ran off deliberately, and CNN thinks he _and _she are sex slaves in the same…department." Louis gave short, sarcastic laugh. "Just watch 'em go, I guess. Let them all, the ones with the correct facts included, revel in their theories."

"But I want someone to just tell people to be on the lookout for them, not turn it into a gigantic gossip session!" Lyla threw her hands over her head, desperate for someone to get a clue already. "Yes, I said them. I feel sorry for _her _family, too. They're going through the same thing we are."

Louis chuckled sarcastically again. "Not exactly. This is far from the ordinary." Lyla had to nod in agreement. Two-time run-away son, a boy of which she'd spent the first eleven years of his life thinking he was dead, and being apart from his father…And five harmonious years after finally locating him, he was gone again, off to God knows where, doing God knows what, in God knows what kind of potential danger.

She became aware of the biting sting of tears in her eyes. "I just want to find him back!" she wailed, buried her face in her husband's shoulder, and began to sob out her motherly grief.

"I know it, Lyla. I know." Louis said in a hushing tone, rocking his wife back and forth in his arms.

* * *

_A/N: I just realized: after this chapter, I'm brutally stuck! Writer's block city. I have ideas, I just need to sort them out evenly which is not the easiest task when you have my rapid-fast mind. Anyway…_

_Next chapter: Katrina spills to Shanice that she "did something" with August. Louis and Aubrey decide to protect their loved one's wishes, by sacrificing their own wants._


	8. What They Want

_A/N: Sorry it's been a while. I've been real busy with concerts, end-of-the-quarter tests (aced them all), and the most horrible case of block. For a while I didn't even want to continue this but then…the Rush-y magic returned and I was able to write this in a matter of an hour._

* * *

**Chapter 8: What They Want**

_One Month Later_

Katrina nervously fumbled with a frizzy disheveled curl, a nervous habit that would never be killed, she was sure, at this point, after three days of nonstop fidgeting.

She forced back tears as she acknowledged her extremely smelly self. Her hands were encrusted with dirt, her favorite sweater--which had been worn every five days for the past two months, and hadn't been washed once since then--was permanently stained and ruined. She was sure August was coming down with strep throat, and that she too would end up with it, for she had been kissing him. She was allergic to something around there, probably the mold, for her arms and wrists kept breaking out in hives. And the worst part of it was…

She'd had unprotected sex on a dirty floor of an illegally occupied building, with her first boyfriend who may or may not keep her forever, at age sixteen. She'd driven it. It was August who started it, but it was her that kept going after he began to hesitate.

For the record however: she'd been right. August's facial expressions during the…_event_…matched the ones he made while playing the Shostakovich concerto perfectly.

But that didn't matter anymore because--

"Hey, what's wrong, girl? You look miserable." Shanice came over to her and wrapped her arms around her, in a comforting hug. Katrina let out a small, short series of sobs, then quickly composed herself before anyone else could spot her tears. "What happened? Don't tell me." Shanice's expression was very, very grave. "He broke up with you, didn't he? That douche bag dragged you out here and then tosses you aside. Men like that!--"

"No, Shanice, he still loves me to death. But it does have to do with him."

"Oh, God. Did he propose? Does he want to go back? Does he--"

Katrina took a deep breath, clamped her hand over her mouth, and began to cry again. She solemnly shook her head no. "I…we…had…" She broke into a fit of stuttering, reminding herself of August whenever Wizard was around. "We had sex!!" she cried out, finally.

Shanice snatched her up in her arms again. "Oh, Trina, was it bad sex? If it was good, or you'd be jubilant, I'm sure."

"No, it was amazing sex. But I--I'm so overwhelmed. I thought I'd never find a guy that would look at my flat chest, my funny birthmark on my thigh, my horribly shaped butt, and all my other flaws and say 'You're like a goddess, Trina' _ever_, nevertheless when I was just sixteen! And he was only sixteen!"

"How long ago was this?" Shanice asked, beginning to worry a little.

"About a month or so."

"Why are you telling me this now, a month after, and why not the day afterwards? Normally you're just bursting to tell me every little damn thing that boy says to you. Then you have sex and you wait a whole month to tell me?" She was about to become frantic with her worry. No, Katrina couldn't; she couldn't be…

Katrina was now wailing into her friend's shoulder. "Because I'm…I think I'm pregnant! I haven't taken a test yet because I don't want to be seen buying one, and I sure as hell can't go to a doctor. Since I'm on freaking CNN and all. I'm scared to street perform these days!" She let it all spill out in one big rambling paragraph, reminding herself again of August when he got _meditative_. "I should probably take a test though. I should dye my hair…"

"No, no, Trina. Don't you dare touch that beautiful red." Shanice rocked her back and forth, rubbing her back. "I'll buy the test for you. And anything else you need. I'll get it for you. Just sit back and be calm, okay? And you should tell August, too. Knowing him and his sentiments, he probably won't run off. He'll be ecstatic."

"I don't _wanna _tell him until I know for sure!" Katrina cried, sounding like a kid whining that he/she didn't want to go to school.

"Okay, okay. Don't. I think that's the good choice, anyway." Shanice coaxed Katrina to ease up a bit, to cover her tears and dry her runny nose. She proceeded to help her wash her hair by the ancient bathroom sink that for some reason, was still miraculously running.

-----

"Hello, ma'am…have you…have you seen this girl?" Aubrey held up the photo of her sister hesitantly up to the passing woman's eyes. The lady studied the picture closely, thoughtfully rubbing her chin, then finally sighed and shook her head.

"No, I'm afraid I haven't, dear. Very sorry. Good luck, though." she replied sympathetically, and walked off, to carry on with her happy own life.

Aubrey looked around for who she wanted to ask next. She'd been asking mostly women, for her irrational paranoia of pedophiles lurking around every corner…but that one guy over there looked trustworthy enough. At least, that's the impression Aubrey got. She'd never had a good act for judging on first impressions, but God did she really need to judge by them _now_. "Ex--excuse me, sir?" The man turned around, and gave her a small grin.

"Yes, there, little miss?" He had an Irish accent. Which somehow made Aubrey feel more comfortable.

"You haven't by chance seen _her_--" she held up the picture. "--around, have you? You may recognize her from the news, she was on CNN the other night, along with this other boy…Alvin, was his name, I think? And _her _name's Katrina." She didn't know quite why she was including all these extra details.

The Irish dude shook his head and chuckled in disbelief. "It seems as though you and I are practically in the same boat. You haven't seen _him_, I take it, have you?" He took his wallet out of his pocket, opened it up and showed Aubrey a picture of a handsome, dimpled boy, the scroll of a cello seen just by the edge of the photo, brushing up against his cheek. Aubrey's mouth fell open. Holy crap, this guy was that boy's father! "Yeah. And his name's August, by the way, not Alvin."

"I…I bet they ran away together. I saw Katrina…I saw her with a boy one day while visiting here, and he looked just like this August. You know, she isn't allowed to date. Neither of us are, of course. I bet they fell in love and they didn't want our parents to split them up."

The guy laughed in disbelief again. "It seems you know your way into her head and her motives the way I sort of know his. I figured that out a while ago. Their disappearances; they just seem so deliberate!…August even took his cello with."

"And Katrina her suitcases and flute. So what do we do? Turn them in and say 'yes, for shizzle, they've run off together' or do we keep our mouths shut and wait for them to be caught by themselves so they don't hate us?" Aubrey shuddered thinking of her sister's wrath if she ratted her out. She'd never forgive Aubrey.

"I want to see him, I want to know for sure he's safe. But I…I dunno, I think that your second idea…" Louis stammered, unable to make the decision quickly. There were so many paradoxical inferences that could be made to suggest either one was good or bad. "The second idea would keep them happy with us. And that's what I want. My son to love me instead of resenting me for ruining his run-away with a forbidden girl." It was hard for Louis to admit that, and for some reason it made him feel like a bad parent, but deep down he knew that that was what August wanted, and therefore that's what Louis wanted. For August to be happy.

Aubrey nodded in agreement. "So that's what we'll do."

"So that's what we'll do." Louis repeated absent-mindedly.

And that is just what they did. They told no one about their discovery, and Katrina and August marked the end of yet another week at Fillmore East, while Katrina nervously waited for Shanice to bring her the pregnancy test.

* * *

_A/N: Ooh, plot bomb! Perhaps it won't be so long next time before I update again…_

_Next chapter: I have no idea. Like I said I have block…baaaaad block…_


	9. Addition

_A/N: Yes…yes, you knew this was coming. You don't know what I'm talking about yet, because I don't think you've read the chapter yet, but you knew this was coming._

_Disclaimer: What's the disclaimer? Same as last chapter. And what was that? Same as the chapter before that._

* * *

**Chapter 9: Addition**

"And why is that, boy?!" Wizard snapped menacingly at August when August suggested that he shouldn't street perform with his cello anymore, for fear of being caught and brought straight back to…square two, would it be? Because history was repeating. And this was square one, again. Square two would be…the church! So square three. No, that was Julliard.

So he didn't want squares two, three, or four. Square four was what he was looking for, which would mean at home with his parents.

NO, wait! He was in square two right now, because square one would be the orphanage! So square one, three, four, and five in that case! Anyway, he was in square two right now, and none of the other squares would work for him because Katrina was in the second quadrilateral alongside him. And that was where he wanted to be. With Katrina.

"Well?!"

August was yanked quickly and rudely back down to Earth away from his confusingly bent thoughts. "I told you: I might get caught and sent right back where I came from." he was quiet, and stutter-y. He was still skittish around Wizard these days; a phobia he was sure at this point was irrevocable and couldn't be cured.

"So what are you going to do, then? You think you can just bunk in this place for_ free_? So I take you in, give you shelter and a place to stay so you can stay with your little girly-friend, and just for nothin' in return?!" Wizard advanced on August quickly, coming within about a one-foot radius of him, and making August flinch so tightly, and cower back so far that he actually tumbled backward to the floor with a profound _thud_.

"W--well, if I get caught, you--you won't have me at all!" August fought the burning feeling in his face and eyes, that was there not because he was really _that _scared, but from the pain of the fall and because he was frustrated with himself for being so jumpy! He pulled himself up, finding that a tiny piece of broken glass that was on the floor had slightly punctured the palm of his hand as he tried to break his fall.

Wizard chuckled, staring at the overzealous reaction of the kid, how scared he'd obviously just gotten. "True. You think there'd be any less chance of you bein' caught if perhaps you picked up guitar again instead?" he asked more gently as August Rush nervously tried to pick the piece of glass out of his hand.

"Maybe. Except…" August didn't make eye contact. It was too much. "Except…Wizard, I haven't hardly touched a guitar in four years! I think I may have forgotten a little."

Wizard grinned mischievously, and drawled. "Ah, we'll just have to see about that, little man."

And before he knew it August had a guitar in his hands for the first time in over four years, wondering what the hell he could possibly still do with it. He didn't know what to play!

-----

Katrina returned from a nerve-wracking and low-profit day of street performing. She was terrified of getting caught. And she was terrified of the separate being that may or may not be inside her right now. Shanice had yet to manage to get a pregnancy test for her. She said she had to find the very best one for Katrina, and the best tests were sort of expensive, so…it was taking her a while.

"Just get me any one!" Katrina had cried.

"No, if you get a cheapie, it won't be accurate!"

And so Katrina paced about, hand involuntarily feeling her stomach for any sign of anything being there. But obviously there was no way she could be showing or even feeling anything there this early on. Maybe this bizarre newfound habit was a sign, a sign she really was…

She returned to her balcony which she shared with August, winding through the furniture maze, and was surprised to find her baby daddy holding a guitar, slowly playing a short series of notes, gradually getting faster and faster and faster…

His hands were a blur!

And he stopped abruptly, upon seeing her there watching him with confused brown eyes, and scowled at her. "What?" he asked curtly, like he was irritated with her or something.

"Wow. Just wow. That was…really good. I thought you were a cellist now. What happened to that?" Katrina sat cross-legged on the floor next to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. Oh, how she prayed that he wouldn't run off when she told him about her…_predicament_. She needed him, always and forever.

August shrugged. "Just spontaneously thought I'd try it again. I don't want to be mono-instrumental," he lied.

"Ah, I see." She kissed his cheek again, and left her face there after the final smooching action of the kiss had been released, nuzzling his neck. She could just tell that he was thinking about the fact that they did something, that their innocence was forever lost. They'd lost both their innocence to each other, and, unbeknown to August but very frightening to Katrina, there could be a result of that; a terrible consequence.

Katrina kept her head on his shoulder, finding comfort in the body heat that soaked through his clothes then warmed and reddened her cheek as she laid there.

Suddenly, Shanice burst in, somehow finding her way quickly through the maze. She shouted, "Greetings! I've got it, Trina! I have--" she stopped abruptly, green eyes widening, and said more softly, "Oh. Hello there, August. Didn't see you at first. Anyways, Trina, you know what I'm talking about." she winked her left eye.

August knitted his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side a bit, perplexed. "Have what?" he asked skeptically. "Gonorrhea?" Katrina hit his arm harder than she had planned, and he winced back.

"No, not that, stupid. Why would she be so happy in that case?" she scolded him. He shrugged innocently. She stood, silently thanking Shanice with the sparkling depth of her eyes, which had somehow gotten even bigger and more puppy-like in the past few days. "Anyway. I'll come with you, and we'll…take care of things. Be right back, sweetie." She turned and waved a brief good-bye to her boyfriend/could-be baby daddy.

Katrina and Shanice wound their way out of the furniture maze, and through the corridors of the Fillmore East, across the stage, down the hallway, and to the still-working bathroom. Katrina had gotten sort of used to the chaos that always resided in the theatre. It hardly bothered her anymore, except the fact that all these poor _younger _kids, the six, seven and eight, and nine year olds, that should be in a loving home with their parents. She wondered why they had ended up here of all places. They couldn't fend for themselves hardly in a place like this!

They passed a small boy, who was on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest in a scared, cold little way. He had to have been around eight years old, his fingernails encrusted with dirt, his skin awfully pale except for the dark baggy circles under his eyes. And his eyes…Katrina swallowed hard against the urge to cry. The boy's eyes were such a shade of piercing icy blue, so bright and alert, compared to the rest of him. They contrasted against his disheveled black hair. She gave him a sad smile, and proceeded on her way.

"Well, here it is." Shanice took a long rectangular cardboard package out of her extensively bottomless coat pocket. "Go. Take it."

Katrina stood there for a moment, holding the box numbly in her hands, the boy's steely gaze still burning in her mind.

She went into the bathroom, preparing to either live or die depending on the result.

-----

Katrina stared down at the test, waterfalls cascading silently down her cheeks. She'd been staring at it for over five minutes, at the result, at the thing that would make or break her future. She closed her eyes, sniffled, and covered her mouth with her hand, stifling the first sob.

She was glad that through the blur of her tears she could no longer clearly see the little purple plus sign. In fact, if she squinted enough, it looked like a minus sign.

But no amount of squinting could change the fact that, all tears aside, there a plus sign, an addition sign, a positive sign, shown. And there was nothing Katrina could do to change it to a minus sign, a subtraction sign, a negative sign.

"When are you going to tell him?" Shanice asked gently, rubbing Katrina's shoulders from behind her, referring to August.

Katrina shook her head. "Sometime." she sobbed. Right now, all she wanted was to wallow in her mother-to-be misery. Perhaps the test was wrong, though, perhaps there was something wrong with her that was making her test positive…but perhaps not. Maybe she really was, and with her sluggish luck, that was probably the case.

"Baby Rush." she said aloud subconsciously. "Baby Rush."

* * *

_A/N: Ew, that ending was bad. I'm sort of losing my touch here, no? ah, I expect the writing quality will get better as things…progress._

_Next chapter: August ends up astray in more ways than one, and pays for it later._


	10. The UncalledFor Angels

_A/N: I've noticed that this story is __very __OC driven. Like you hardly see anything of August. Just Katrina mostly. I dunno, maybe it's 'cause I'm so proud of me for inventing such a believable non-obnoxious, non-Mary Sue, Original Character. No matter what the reason, I think we're seeing too much Katrina. But August needs to take back-seat for now, until Katrina tells him about her situation. This one's mostly August with a dash of Katrina at the end._

_P.S. I apologize. It's about to get more OC driven. I know it may get annoying._

* * *

**Chapter 10: The Uncalled-For Angels**

August wandered about on his way back to the Fillmore East from yet another day from street performing--with his guitar this time-- trying to keep his head down so no one would recognize him. What if he got caught? Oh, the thought of it almost made August want to pass out. Leaving Katrina all alone, all by herself, in a gang-speckled homeless environment, in an illegally occupied abandoned theatre. Especially after giving his one-time gift to her.

They were permanently committed to each other in a way. At least that was, deep down, even though he wouldn't admit it to anyone-- even himself, what August believed should be.

When he first was getting to know Katrina and vice versa, when the topic of religion and ethnic beliefs was brought up as it naturally would have, August had told her that he was "religion-nonspecific." to try and impress her. It did.

"I believe in God and all, but I'm not a homophobe, and I think yoga is cool even though you'll never catch me dead attempting to try such a thing. I believe in the supernatural crap, and that odd connections between living beings everywhere does exist--I'm living proof of that after all." he'd rambled to her. "And traditional Jewish music is cool. It's got lots of culture to it." he added though that didn't really have to do with beliefs.

Which, even though he'd planned on stretching the truth a bit, it was the plain truth. All of it. Not even the slightest tug or stretch. It seemed as though whenever he planned on telling something not in his heart to Katrina it backfired and he told her the plain miraculous truth, and she still thought it was the coolest thing ever.

He looked up carefully, upon noticing that it wasn't so typically NYC-crowded, to check where he was at in relation to the theatre, or just because of human instinct that didn't permit one to look down at his feet all the time when headed to a specific destination. He took in a horrified gasp, realizing that this wasn't the direction of the Fillmore East at all. Not even near it. He hadn't been here before, ever, and he had no idea where he was.

But it was a poor neighborhood, with run-down buildings clad in graffiti towering menacingly over him, commanding his fear. Trash littered the sidewalks, and a street-lamp flickered miserably even though it was still daytime. The NYC equivalent of Los Angeles' Skid Row, he thought with a rush of terror inside him. Not the safest place to be!

He was going to start physically panicking when he noticed something that made him gasp again, this time in ironic recognition. The sight of a glorious, also run-down but still all the beautiful stones-sided church. The stained glass windows glinted in the sunlight, telling him _August, it's okay, you have been here before after all. You're safe here. Just come on in._

He steadied himself before falling to his knees with relief and shock. The only place of his past besides the orphanage that he had had yet to revisit. And here he was. Hope, Reverend J, the choir, everyone he'd known there. And here he was.

Hope would be about fourteen now. She'd probably changed so much. Hope…

August continued staring wide-eyed at the church with awe, until his thoughts were brought back down to earth, rather enchantingly, as his highly-trained ear caught sound of a lovely floating voice, getting gradually louder as it got closer. The voice of an female African-American, that's all he could tell at this point. He could even begin to make out words…

_Seems to be nothing left for me; momma's gone, daddy didn't wanna be, and now I'm all by myself… _the voice was right behind him. Right there, its owner waiting to be discovered by him, waiting for the friendship they'd had to be rekindled, waiting to be…reconciled after nearly five years.

August slowly turned. A face met his gaze, matured and beautified from since he last saw her, gorgeous and not a trace of makeup. A gold cross necklace. Curls pulled back in a bun. Big brown eyes staring back at him in common recognition, teary, for she saw him. And knew him.

Hope.

August.

The two friends who had played the piano together one defining spring morning, performed music alongside each other one late summer evening, one conducting and one singing. Both teenagers' breath quickened, and they bounded up to each other and surrounded each other in such a tight embrace.

August fought a losing battle against tears. Katrina couldn't hug quite like _that_.

"Oh, God. It can't be you!" Hope cried into August's shoulder. "It's gotta be an angel. An angel!"

"No, _you're _the angel, remember?" August sobbed into Hope's hair. "Oh, it's been so long. Let's catch up." He shakily led her to the church's front steps, and they both took a seat, both still staring at each other in disbelief.

Hope took in a deep breath, clutching his hand in hers, determined not to let him go. Nothing had happened to her at all lately, she said. Going to school, babysitting children at the church…and waiting for her long-lost friend to come and find her again, to hear her music, and to come and get her; to sweep her off her feet, in a way.

"Sweep you off your feet?" August inquired, confused. A weird knotting feeling formed deep within him, making him feel funny and uncomfortable yet oddly in the _right place_. Like after he'd been reunited with his parents. Like he was on the right track or something…

A scarlet rush of blood tinted Hope's cheeks. "Well… I mean… if you don't want to go that far--"

August interrupted her, pressing a finger to her lips. Her lips were full and warm and soft and--_glossed_! Mauve and sparkly. Katrina never wore lip gloss. Even before they ran away. It was probably a completely different kissing experience, wasn't?

He decided to try.

What Katrina didn't know wouldn't hurt her…

Hope would have to ask for God's forgiveness later. Right now, August was parting her lips (much like, unbeknown to her, how he'd done to Katrina) and just as they opened their mouths, she pulled herself onto his lap. There they were, making out on the front stoop of a church!

---

A crowd had simultaneously gathered outside the door of Wizard's "Office" (which was really the big fancy room with the broken glass dome through which one could look up at the stars at night and philosophize). They gossiped anxiously, nosily, wondering what the ruckus behind the door was about. Shanice and Katrina arrived last, Katrina clutching her stomach against the fading nausea from earlier that morning.

From behind the door, muffled voices could be heard. Two of them: a grown man's (obviously Wizard) bellowing things like "Come on, you're the best violinist we have!!" and "Don't you dare think about going back to that wretched place! They don't care about you!!" The second voice was that of a smaller boy's, shakily retaliating with things like "But, sir, I--" and "Yes, they do care--" and the occasional gasp or small cry.

Shanice's mouth fell agape, offended. She leaned in closer to Katrina and whispered, "The best violinist?!" Shanice played violin, and rather well, only her D string was very close to snapping and was bound to break any day and then she'd be screwed.

"I suppose it's that Aiden kid." Arthur suggested to the crowd, addressing, figuring out as to what sort of punishment this little "Aiden" was going to have to endure besides a good telling-off. "He's been talking about going back where he came from. He's gonna get it good, eh!"

"Aiden?" Katrina asked. "I don't think I've met him before."

"Ah, I bet you saw him, for sure. He's not hard to miss. Big scary horror movie ghost eyes. And he always looks sleep-deprived. And sick. And…dead." Arthur shuddered and Shanice nodded in agreement.

Katrina remembered the little boy she smiled at on her way to take her pregnancy test the other day. Her pulse quickened. Perhaps she really was very pregnant; her motherly instincts kicked in like a little switch inside of her, and she wanted nothing more than to get that poor child out of the menacing clutches of Wizard. She remembered his eerie glare, his piercing eyes, and the shock of black hair and dramatic eyebrows. That pale face. "Oh, him." was all she could choke out. Her mind screamed at her, _Go save him!_

But it was too late for that. The "office" door slowly creaked open, Wizard snapped, "Now get out of here and tell everyone to leave me the hell alone!" and out emerged Aiden, who was taller standing up than Katrina thought he would be, only he was shaking and twitching like mad, a dazed look on his face, and he was weak on his knees. His eyes were piercing as ever, but they were so out of focus and he appeared so in shock that Katrina instinctively rushed forward to him.

She reached his side just as his stunning eyes rolled back slightly and he collapsed, backward right into Katrina's arms. She let out a small scream as his weight tumbled into her grasp, but she hadn't enough strength to steady him back up, and she kneeled down slowly as the aid to break his fall. Once they reached the floor, she laid his head in her lap and soothingly stroked his bangs off of his sweaty forehead, the way that always calmed August down. She fanned him with her other hand.

"How old is he?" she asked Arthur.

"Uh, I'm not sure. I think, like, eleven or somethin'. Twelve soon. Yeah, he looks young. But, man, he sure is a softy. I got a tellin'-off like that and I just laughed my ass of afterwards."

"Arthur!" Katrina snapped disapprovingly. "He's just a little boy! And August is no tough guy either; he nearly pees his pants every time Wizard casts a glance his way." She just spoke ill of her baby-daddy, but all she really cared about right now was helping the kid in her arms regain consciousness.

Katrina couldn't help, though, but feel, as she held Aiden and stroked his black tresses, that today she caught a falling angel in her arms. There was something special about this boy and she was determined to find out what.

* * *

_A/N: I'm rather satisfied with this chapter. The scene between August and Hope was wrong-ish yet not angering, Katrina is being a good Samaritan, and we've got a mystery-type kid. I know Aiden seems kinda Gary Stu-ish right now, but as I define his character we'll take care of that, won't we?_

_Next chapter: Aiden awakes, and helps Katrina find the courage to finally 'fess up to August._


	11. Something Inside

_A/N: Another slow update. For one, I've got a big big solo contest coming up, and I've been having problems at school with the irrevocable not-fitting-in teenage issues which upset me and render incapable of writing good quality stuff. But I'm okay now, so here it is!_

* * *

**Chapter 11: Something Inside**

Katrina braced with anticipation. Aiden twitched. His eyelids fluttered open. His icy blue irises shot through her once again. "What happened?" he asked slowly, a bit distraught still. He focused on her. "Who are you?"

"I'm Katrina." she answered gently. "And you passed out." She decided not to tell him the circumstances under which he fainted. "I caught you before you hit the floor, and I was worried about you. So I've been with you all this time." She helped him sit up on the floor next to her. He assumed the same position, knees drawn up to his chest, as when she first saw him.

Aiden pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to stop the dizzy whirring feeling that was spinning his brain like a Frisbee. He looked at the girl who had rescued him. Apart from being real pretty with curly red hair, and ivory skin and brown eyes that reminded him of his best friend's prior to his running away, he noticed the she didn't appear half-starved like a great deal of the other kids there. Her stomach was significantly round, for that matter.

Katrina leaned forward and turned away from him slightly, noticing that Aiden was staring at her belly. Did he notice? Was she really starting to show _that _much?

"Not to be rude or anything," Aiden began hesitantly and Katrina felt her heart do a kangaroo-jump, knowing what was coming, "but where are you getting it? The extra food? I have quite a time finding any. You look a little less…starved than the rest of us." He blushed and wrung his hands nervously.

"I…well…" her fears were confirmed. "See, Aiden… it's not food that put that…_that_…there. See, Aiden, I'm p-pregnant." Each time she said it, it was getting admittedly easier for her, but it was a slow and steady progress and was still very awkward.

"Oh." Aiden said, and shrugged. The innocence of the shrug. It struck Katrina. He must be lots more sheltered than she thought he might be. "Who's the daddy?"

"August Rush."

"Oh." Another innocent shrug from Aiden. "I bet he's real happy."

"He doesn't…he doesn't know quite yet. I haven't told him. I'm afraid he won't be happy." Why was she spilling about her personal problems to this little kid who didn't understand half of it? "We are awful young, you know."

Aiden spaced out for a moment, his dreadful, infamous eyes taking on a celestial gaze. "I think you should tell him. He has a right to know he's going to be a daddy, you know." He smiled up at her. "And if he isn't happy, then I think you can find a better daddy for your baby." How easy it must be for him, Katrina thought, to give out words of wisdom, when he didn't know the complications and… _bad _of the situation.

"You sure?"

Aiden nodded. "I think that sounds reasonable." He stood up, a little shaky at first, but he'd almost fully regained his sense of balance back from his fainting spell earlier. He gave the nice pregnant girl Katrina a final reassuring smile, and headed off.

"Wait. Aiden." Katrina said, and grabbed his arm. He turned back, looking at her expectantly. A trace of the smile still lingered on his lips. "Thank-you. Thanks so much. You have great advice." She mussed his hair to show her appreciation

"You're welcome. And thank _you_." he replied cordially, and walked off before she could respond again.

-----

August rounded the corner, heart still racing and lips still tingling, from his make-out session with Hope. He felt terrible, horrible, filthy. For kissing another girl after having sex with another and dragging the latter out in the homelessness of ghetto New York. He wiped the last of Hope's strawberry-flavored lipgloss off his mouth, before heading up to his balcony to find Katrina.

"Hey." he said, giving her a little wave with his fingers.

"Hi." She had her arms folded over her chest, in an almost stolid way, her seriousness intimidating. "How was your day?"

"Good. I got twenty-five dollars today. Not the most profitable but still something to give I suppose. And yours?" August noticed that normally, a few months earlier, they would've kissed and hugged each other in greetings. But now they stood, stony and emotionless on opposite sides of the room, struggling to make their way through troubled small-talk.

"Alright, I guess. I made a new friend. This kid named Aiden. He's a littler guy but he gives advice as useful as any girl-friend could." She shook her head for reasons beyond August. A habit; a method of showing that she felt the tension, too. She took a deep breath. "August," she said quietly, "listen, I need to talk to you about something." Even he heard her swallow hard.

"Okay. Shoot." he anxiously waited for her to speak what was on her mind.

Katrina walked over to him and hesitantly took his hand. "It's a long story. And there's much to discuss. Why don't we…go for a walk." It was getting late, dark outside, and the moon was already out, but Katrina wanted him alone in the quiet without the chaos of the theatre.

August raised an eyebrow. "Okay…"

They headed out into the streets. Katrina's fear of the street had faded, and she wasn't so skittish. And being near August made her feel better. The moonlight even made her feel with comfort, like she had someone or something watching over her. She kept a grip on August's hand, even though he didn't hold back with the same affection that he used to. The realization of that always made her want to crawl under a rock and cry, and have her baby under there.

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes catching the glimmer of the stars.

"You know we've had a pretty adventurous four months." Katrina began her speech, wanting to prolong the confession for as long as possible. She had August all to herself whether he liked it or not; she liked it that way. "And we've gone through a lot. We've done some things…" she trailed off.

"So? Are you homesick?" he asked with more sympathy than she might've expected. She shook her head no. "Then what?" They passed a glowing sign that said Irving Plaza. Music wafted from the building, flowing into the teens' ears, making August stop abruptly and take in a shrill gasp.

He recognized the band's singer's voice. It was Louis.

His dad.

August closed his eyes. He didn't want to leave that spot. It was the closest contact he'd ever come in with his parents since he ran away. And he was missing them something terrible. "Hear that?" he asked Katrina.

"Yeah." she said breathlessly. She would listen to it forever as long as he would keep increasing his grip on her hand like that. Tighter and tighter. "I've never heard this song before. Must be one of those original bands or something. You know, the ones that are real good but don't have record deals?"

He nodded and smiled at her. "I know for a fact that it is. My dad is singing. With his band. And that cello that you can sorta hear in the background? My mom."

_So long we've been running in circles, around what's at stake. But now the time's come for your feet to stand still in one place… _"I like the lyrics. Did he write that?" she asked.

"Yup. He wrote it while he was looking for my mom and Mom was looking for me. And that was before he knew there was a me at all, so…it's mainly for my mom."

Katrina decided that, although it would spoil the moment completely for him, it was now or never. "August. You know how we did…_something_?" she didn't wait for him to respond. "I…I'm…" She didn't want to say the P word. So she compromised and spit it out in one mushed phrase. "I'm having a baby!" she cried, and melted into tears. "I'm. Having. A. Baby." she said more slowly in between sobs.

"W-What?" August suddenly turned very pale.

_It's the first thing you see as you open your eyes, the last thing you say as you're saying goodbye. Something inside you is crying and driving you on…_

"I'm pregnant!" she screamed, not caring that she might be overheard.

_If you hadn't found me, I would've found you. I would have found you! I would have found you! I would have found…you…_

August shook his head in denial and broke into one of his stuttering fits. "No, no, you can't be…you can't…we're so young." His heart lurched repeatedly, beating furiously on his ribs. He glanced down at Katrina's stomach. A very subtle, hardly noticeable bump was visible. "Trina." he began to sob, too. Bitterly. "Oh, God, Trina!" The long-awaiting tears escaped his eyes, and he collected his first love into a hug. She bawled into his shoulder, and he cried into her hair, just like he and Hope that million years ago that afternoon. But it couldn't have been more different.

"I'm _so _sorry!" Katrina sniffled.

"What do you have to be sorry for?!"

"I made you keep going. You wanted to stop but I pushed it on. And now _this _happened!" She let a round of remorse surface via her cries.

August was about to protest that it was, after all, him who started it all in the first place, but he didn't want to fight with her; not now. "It wasn't your fault, Trina. It wasn't your fault. It was _our _fault."

Another song began, and Louis's voice filled the air again.

_Tonight the sky above, reminds me of the love, walking through into time, on this here night…I've been sitting watching life pass from the sidelines. Been waiting for a dream to seep in through my blinds. I wonder what might happen, if I left this all behind. Would the wind be at my back, could I get you off my mind…this time. _

"Dad wrote this song for my mom after they got separated. While she was pregnant with me." August pointed out, still crying and holding Katrina. "He sang it for me the night we all…_reconciled_. It got me to sleep, it did. Even though I was so worked up, you know. This is my favorite out of all of his songs. Mom's too." And, to Katrina's surprise, he began quietly singing along with it. "The neon lights of ours, and headlights from the cars, started a symphony, inside of me."

"I wouldn't leave you in a million years, as long as you won't leave me." Katrina began to calm down. The song was soothing, when sang softly right in her ear.

"I won't leave you. I don't want that baby to go through what I did. I promise I'll be the best dad ever." He never considered that she might want to give their child up. Even if she did, he would never let that happen. Ever. "I know it's been tough for us lately but… Trina, I love you." He spoke the plain truth there. The most sincere he'd been lately.

Katrina loved hearing those words delivered to her. She'd missed that. "I love you too." And she was equally sincere.

_I wonder what might happen, if I left this all behind. Would the wind be at my back, could I get you off my mind…this time. _

* * *

_A/N: I tried to make it as touching as possible. The opening scene was unbelievably crappy and the end was a bit corny. But overall I think this was a satisfying chapter, eh?_

_Next Chapter: FLASHBACK CHAPTER! WOO! _


	12. Flashback, One Day at the Hospital

_A/N: Flashback…I knew I wanted a flashback in this area around here somewhere. I just didn't know where to flashback to. Finally I was like "Oh yes!" and this was perfect, regarding the events in the last chapter. A compilation of my two favorite flashback choices. _

* * *

**Chapter 12: Flashback - One Day At the Hospital...**

August leaned his head back on the wall, that scary white wall. Poor Mom. She was losing her baby; his little sister. So long he'd wanted this: to have a little sibling with the parents he always wished for and finally got. But he was sure Mom would never want to try again, after losing two babies in a row.

Only this baby girl she would never get back.

He hadn't felt so miserable since…since that night in the subway, the night of the concert. The train whizzing by, lights flashing, as Wizard yelled at him that his parents were dead, that they didn't want him, that they never heard him. And yet that was so quick, so fast, and before long he was up on stage, the happiest boy alive.

But this misery was slow, flowing like honey. Slowly flowing like the tears he now could no longer control--

"Hey," a soothing deep voice murmured to him, its owner embracing him gently. "Come here, son. Come here." No, Dad shouldn't see him like this. August was _sixteen years old _now, he wasn't supposed to cry, he couldn't! He kept his arms at his sides, not hugging his father back.

"I--I'm going to go for a walk…" he said quickly and tore himself from Louis. He made sure that his dad didn't get such a good look at his face, to see him crying. Yes, Dad did know he was, but he didn't have to _see _it.

Once August was around the corner, out of sight from any family members, he dashed into the hallway, around another corner, and down three flights of steps (the elevator was too slow, just like his misery) to the lobby, and out the door. He pretended that he was invisible and that people couldn't see him. Even if they could, they didn't matter; they were just strangers.

The spring-scented outside air smacked him hard and cruelly in the face. The pale sunlight stung his already burning eyes. Why was it so nice today? The world wasn't supposed to have good weather when his baby sister just died. It was supposed to rain and thunder and rip through towns in furious hurricanes and tornadoes and tsunamis. The heavens were supposed to let loose their tears just like he was now!

But then, there was a tap on his shoulder. A pretty girl. "You okay?" she asked, holding a tissue out to him.

-----

_Five years earlier._

"Are we almost there? Are we almost there? Are we almost there?!" The eleven-year-old redhead demanded of her parents as they drove via taxi in a traffic jam. This was the most exciting event of her life. She even wore her favorite music-note necklace to accent the perfect outfit for it. She let out a squeal. "_I can't wait_!!" she wailed.

Honestly, she was about ready to just burst out of that car and run there herself. She needed to get to that concert _now_, before she exploded in a big fire of adrenaline and impatience.

"For goodness sake, Katrina!" her mother said. "We'll get there plenty early anyway. I promise, dear."

"This is a big night for her, Holly." her father said. "She's been wanting to see this orchestra since she saw them on TV when she was, um, around Aubrey's age." he gestured toward the seven-year-old. "I'm sure she's extremely excited."

"YOU THINK?!" Katrina shouted. Her family chuckled.

When they arrived, she pretty much fell to her knees and kissed the ground, was almost tempted to scream "Hallelujah!" in praise to God that she finally got there, and before it even started.

The announcer stepped on stage. The dean at Julliard! "Welcome to our Concert in the Park, and the Mercedes Drive Your Future scholarship celebration. And now it is with enormous pleasure that I welcome back to the stage one of Julliard's own, Lyla Novacek!"

Katrina, holding tightly to her father's hand, tried to worm her way as close as possible to the front. She wasn't at the exact front, but she had a great view, anyway. The cellist was very pretty, and her dress; it must've cost a fortune! She played the first few bars of the Elgar Cello Concerto, one of Katrina's favorites, and throughout the entire thing she did nearly as good as Jacqueline Du Pre.

Next up was a piano player named Lionel Wigram or something. He played Fur Elise by Beethoven, another of her favorites.

By the end of the concert, however, Katrina's ultimate favorite performance was the last one._ August's Rhapsody_, it was called. It even made Katrina cry towards the end. There was this boy conducting, perhaps around her age, and he composed that all by himself! And at the end, he turned around, looked at the audience, or rather the front row, and smiled with all the joy a human being could muster. He looked really genuinely happy, Katrina thought. He must be really passionate about his music.

-----

_Back to that day at the hospital._

"What's your name?" Katrina asked as she and this boy sat in the lobby together, a foam cup of cheap distasteful coffee in her hand.

"Did you go to the Philharmonic's Concert in the Park? The one where they played the Elgar Cello Concerto and August's Rhapsody ?" he answered her with a completely unrelated question.

Katrina wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion. What did that have to do with anything? "Yeah…" She smiled, though, remembering the happiness of that night.

"In that case," he said with a bitter laugh, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Why not?"

"Because I…am August Rush." the seriousness in his voice was rather enticing. But then he smiled, horribly fake and sarcastic, but the dimples and big front teeth made her recognize him immediately. Her heart jumped; rather like a kangaroo hopping about.

"Cool." was all Katrina could say. She'd thought about that performance a lot since seeing it. It had had an effect on her; and for a good reason it seemed, considering she just gave the kid a tissue and awkwardly patted his back while he calmed down from a sob-fest. "You've grown up…quite a bit."

"Have I?"

Katrina nodded vigorously. "I hardly recognized you." She suddenly felt horribly uncomfortable, in the presence of this musical genius when all she had on her résumé was nine years of mediocre flute lessons.

A classical symphony wafted through the speakers overhead in the lobby. It was quiet and subtle, but one could hear it quite plainly if they listened close enough. "Hear that?" August Rush asked her.

"It sounds familiar. What is it?" With each passing moment, she began to feel more and more inferior. Did he think she was such an idiot? It was probably some real popular piece that she most certainly should know. He knew it, she could tell, and here she was drawing a blank.

"Beethoven's Third Symphony. The _Eroica_." he declared. Katrina slapped her forehead. Of course. "So…know much about classical music, do you?" He tilted his head to one side, and looked at her, quizzing her. Katrina was rendered speechless. It should be illegal for a prodigy to ask an Average Jane about the world of classical music.

"Um…there's _pianissimo, mezzo piano, piano, mezzo forte, forte, _and_ fortissimo_. For string players, there's _pizzicato_. And _vibrato_. There are concertos, symphonies, suites, overtures, sonatas… rhapsodies…" she cast him a nervous grin on the word "rhapsody." And he returned it, if only for a moment. "The violins are to the right of the orchestra, left of the audience…and the New York Philharmonic kicks ass." August burst out laughing as she said this, genuinely for the first time, and not an ounce of fakeness.

"Do you ever get songs stuck in your head?" he ran his fingers through his hair. His eyes were still a bit ruddy from crying. God, Katrina thought, if he noticed her beginning to sweat…

She nodded. "Who doesn't?"

"What do you have stuck in you head right now?"

She chuckled, acknowledging for the first time what really was stuck in her head. Her miserable situation. "You don't want to know. It's probably the farthest thing from classical as music can get."

"Hmm, I'm guessing rap in that case?"

Katrina nodded again. "Okay, yeah, you're right. 'Lollipop' by Lil Wayne." August burst out laughing again, and gave her his sympathies. "I don't know how that got there. Especially after listening to the _Eroica_!"

"A whole song dedicated to the wonders of oral sex, I assume." August said, but then quickly turned more scarlet than when she'd found him. Katrina felt her face heat up too, the hair on the back of her neck prickling when he uttered the phrase 'oral sex'. "I tried going to a school dance once in eighth grade," he continued, "But after ten minutes I was like 'Okay, that's enough of that!' and I was out of there."

"I go to Homecoming. It's the only dance I permit myself to actually ever have any fun dancing. The only night I don't care what anyone thinks of my wicked moves!" Katrina said, and August knitted his eyebrows at her as if to say _You have wicked moves? _"I never go to Valentine's, or Spring Formal, or anything like that. And I'm too young to go to prom without a date. Juniors and seniors only, with younger dates if applicable. I never have dates to anything. I've never even slow-danced with a boy before."

Katrina was all to aware that she just let it slip that she was 100% single.

"I've never had a date before to anything, ever, in any such case, with a girl. Not even a guy! I've never gotten a number from either gender." He blushed again. "I--I'm straight though, if you're wondering."

Katrina didn't even notice she was shakily reaching into her handbag and taking out a paper and pen. She quickly scribbled her number onto the sticky note. She pressed the sticky part of the note onto August's shirt. "There's _my_ number." she whispered.

* * *

_A/N: This is my favorite chapter I've written so far! I like the sexual tension I accidentally put in there. I planned on awkwardness for sure, but not like that. I think it had a good effect that explains chapter 7. And YES, Katrina was there at the concert! :-D_

_Next chapter: ...Pretty much everyone else finds out._


	13. The Negotiation

_A/N: I decided not to do the time lapse. That'd make Katrina about five months along! Things should go more slowly. And I apologize for the sulkiness and drama in this chapter. We need it to help things along._

* * *

**Chapter 13 : The Negotiation**

"Good job…Gracias…Nice tips, Nina…and how about you three, my most talented mice?" Wizard said at collection time that evening. He turned to Katrina, Aiden, and August, who were standing in a tight queue at the ready. Katrina handed over thirty-two dollars. 'Aiden the Amazing' had collected some forty-one and twenty five cents. And then…

August gave his signature _I'm-trying-super-hard-not-to-be-scared-of-you _glare, and handed Wizard no more than a meager nine dollars and fifty cents. "What's this?!" Wizard snapped. "Nine-fifty?!" The rest of the kids laughed accusingly at the prodigy's feeble earnings.

Katrina and Aiden looked at each other in surprise. "Ouch." Aiden mouthed. Katrina's face flushed pale with concern. She wanted to step in between Wizard and her baby-daddy to protect him, to make sure nothing potentially violent, be it physically or emotionally, did come to him. She wiggled her hand around at her side, searching frantically for August's, but she found no such skin.

"Explain this atrocity!" Wizard bellowed at him. August shook his head no. "EXPLAIN THIS!!" Wizard waved the meager pocket change right up in August's face, but still August refused to tell. Katrina's eyebrow went up despite her efforts to keep it in place; what was going on with him?

Then, to everyone's unearthly gasp, Wizard's hand shot out and snatched August by the arm, holding on tightly, digging his fingernails into August's bare skin. After the gasp, the room fell perfectly silent, no one stirred or made a sound, except August, with tiny noises of implied pain escaping his throat. His eyes squeezed shut and his mouth hung open slightly, continuously stifling a yelp.

"Come with me, August." Wizard said, surprisingly calm, and dragged August by his squeezed arm. Katrina could feel his heart kicking up a stampede against his ribs in such an empathy, or perhaps that was her own heart, and if so she wondered how that might compare to the vicious pounding of his. She wanted to run after them, to scream and yell and save him from being hurt in any such way. And the way August went along, so willingly, so calm, with one last burning look at Katrina before being whisked away to who knows what.

"Oh, my God," Shanice moaned and covered her eyes. "what the hell just happened?" Everyone stayed rooted to their spots, completely silent, their faces frozen on expressions of pure shock.

Aiden and Katrina finally willed themselves to move, running up the grand stair case and around the corner, down that hallway with the peeling burgundy paint, around that corner, and came to a skidding stop at Wizard's "Office" door. Katrina pressed her ear to the door, straining her eardrums for sounds of whacking and yells of agony from August but she heard nothing. Nothing at all. "It's perfectly silent." she whispered to Aiden.

Aiden looked as though he might faint again. "D'you think he…?" he heard himself say before he could stop it. Katrina let out a high-pitched noise and began to cry hysterically into the wall, before quieting herself and moving away from the door, yet she continued silently sobbing. "No, no, Trina, no. I didn't mean…I mean, Katrina, we should stay here and wait. Someone's gonna come out eventually. Whether it's August or…or on the worst case scenario a blood-stained Wizard. We'll just stay here and wait, okay?"

She nodded slowly, then knelt on the ground, trying to bury herself in thoughts. Thoughts about everything. From recollecting her mom's Christmas cookie recipe, to remembering the noises of pleasured anticipation coming from deep within August's throat as she unbuttoned his pants that one night…she tried to distract herself. The perception of time slipped away from her. They might've been sitting there for ten minutes, they might've been sitting there for over a day. She cuddled Aiden close to her, squeezing him like a teddy bear, until she heard a noise from behind the office door.

The knob slowly turned. Or maybe it turned at normal pace, and that was just Katrina's warped sense of time talking. The door creaked open. The two young friends braced. They prayed for the safe emergence of the third member of their trio.

August stepped into the hallway, looking perfectly impassive, even though he was shaking slightly, from a long and nerve-wracking talk with Wizard about what needed to be done. And surprisingly he'd successfully been able to negotiate. "I'll make a deal with you," August had said, firmly backed up against a wall, "If I don't rat you out for what you've clearly been breaking the law doing, you can just let me, as well as Katrina and Aiden, leave quietly and never spoil the secrets of what's been going on around here." Wizard reluctantly agreed. And now they were going home.

He suddenly found himself being enveloped horribly tightly in a desperate hug. A girl sobbed into his shoulder. "Trina," he whispered very softly in her ear, "guess what? We can go home now."

-----

**The next day.**

"_Congratulations, Lyla, it's a boy." the nurse smiled as she handed Lyla her baby. The baby twitched and whimpered, his brand-new face all angelic. The feel of his movement in her arms stunned her, the internal symphony filling her up to the brim like it always did when the connection between her and her baby was fulfilled. _

"_My son." she muttered, as the little life squirmed about, moving his arms around on his own, fascinating her. "Hi, there, baby." She kissed her son's cheek. "Hi, baby…"_

…Lyla awoke with a jolt, found herself in a warm soft bed, alone, although she could tell someone else had been there recently. She put her head in her hands and allowed herself a good long cry. _There is no such thing as happy endings, _she realized miserably, _the_ _Disney Princesses lied. It doesn't make a single damn difference if you follow your heart or wish upon stars, or believe in true love or…or fairies…or anything like that. _Just think of all the nights the three of them had spent their time doing nothing but all those things. It took eleven years for all that to finally pull off, but then five years after _that _it was all crushed between the cold, calloused fingers of fate again.

After two epic failures of babies in a row, and recurring dreams about the both of them, and terribly long periods of heart-breaking separation from the truly alive one, fate was obviously just a stone being that enjoyed benefiting some families and ripping long bloody gashes in others.

Lyla wondered what she'd done wrong to deserve all of this. What she'd done to make August just take off like that again. Where she'd gone horribly off track and fell into this big hole of _sad_.

And there was no sense in carrying another life inside of her if it was doomed to either die or just get whipped around along the "emotional roller-coaster of a life story" (as August had dubbed it himself) along with them all.

She'd been in to see Mr. Jeffries the other day, who once again was working on August's case, considering how good a job he'd done last time. Of course that'd been no comfort, for they could do absolutely nothing except look around and otherwise just wait. Wait for something to come up. A strand of hair, a fingerprint, a shred of clothing, or perhaps a body, preferably by miles a live one.

"When we do find him," Lyla had asked, "how can we keep the press off our backs? How do we keep everything all nice and tranquil for the three of us? And most importantly, how do we react? Do we yell at him, punish him, ground him, what? Or do we just welcome him back and pretend like nothing had ever happened?" The quick cascade of questions knocked Richard Jeffries speechless.

"I don't know." he stuttered. "I really don't know. It's just…Lyla, no matter how happy a child he seems, there's always going to be that lingering guilt. Some depression. Some sort of negative feeling gnawing at him. Perhaps he felt that getting away from it all for a while would change all that."

But then Mr. Jeffries sighed and rubbed his aching forehead. "But then, of course, I'm no psychologist. I'm only a social worker. And sitting here coming up with reasons for his disappearance won't find him back, will it?" He forced a reassuring smile that Lyla didn't buy one bit, then it quickly faded and his expression became grave again. "I'm sorry, Miss Novacek. There's just not much we can do at all… I wanna find him back too. That kid…damn, that kid haunts my dreams; every night. He touched my soul, he really did. He inspires not only me or you, but pretty much everyone he meets. He's not just gifted, he's simply a gift all himself." Mr. Jeffries wasn't normally the type to give speeches like this at all, nevertheless one this emotional. He stood up, paced around a couple of laps, and concluded, "We'll do everything that's in our legal power to make sure he gets back to you, alive and safe."

Lyla sat there on the opposite side of the desk from him, flabbergasted. She'd received pep talks before, but none as deep as that. A social worker, the type of person that wasn't supposed to let people affect him at all, going on about how her son had inspired him. "Thank you, Mr. Jeffries. Thanks so much." was all she could quietly choke out.

"No problem." said Richard, returning to his emotionally stolid state again.

But now, curling back up in bed even though it was nearly 10 a.m., Lyla had almost lost hope. Four months. Four months, at least. Perhaps a little bit more. She'd tried to count, just like the first time, but eventually lost motivation and lost track. She glared at the smiling brown teddy bear on the nightstand, the one that she'd bought originally for August when she was pregnant with him, and was going to be given to Lola (what she decided to call the lost baby girl) when she was born. The bear sat there not only for cozy decoration, but for constant reminder of the two baby losses, so that Louis and Lyla would be careful when they had sex and Lyla would continue her birth control regimen.

She grabbed the teddy bear and hugged it to her chest, nuzzling it with her cheek like she always did when she was a little girl. "Come back to me, August, please come back, baby." she whispered, and fell solemnly back to sleep.

* * *

_AN: As usual the opening scene could've been WAY better… And I apologize for the brief doubt about my own story. It's not so great compared to others, but mine's quite unique and the only one that tells a full-fledged sequel that takes place quite after the concert! This fandom sort of needs me with my bitter chocolate to have a pleasant break from all the sugar…_

_Next Chapter: The trio turns themselves in to the police. Families are reunited._


	14. I'll Find You

_A/N: It's been a while. I've been…refilling my writing juices for some time. Read some books, examined some writing techniques, learned some interesting new words. And so it seems that a temporary hiatus fuels brilliant ideas._

* * *

**Chapter 14: I'll Find You**

A pair of deep blue eyes were squeezed closed--though the owner's thoughts remained rapid. An orphanage: a country-style, white sided orphanage, attached to the front of his mind. A boy inside that orphanage, with hope and sorrow fist-fighting each other in his heart, poked the blue-eyed thinker in the ribs, painfully. A wheat field, tall green stalks whirling to and fro in the wind, whispered phrases and sang melodies to both the boy and the blue-eyed thinker.

Because, it turns out the boy and the blue-eyed thinker were, frankly, the same person. The same being, all flesh and memory considered. Except one thing, two things, no, three things, that separated one from the other.

For one, the blue-eyed thinker had completely and single-handedly screwed not only his life up but that of a pretty red-head girl's; the boy was only beginning his hellish journey. For another, the orphaned boy had nothing but a friend with a tendency to be persuaded and wander; the blue-eyed thinker had family--perhaps more family members in the making than he'd planned on.

And, finally, one was plainly named Evan Taylor and the other went by the dreadfully unusual name of August Rush.

_I believe in music the way some people believe in fairy tales, _Evan said quietly, wonder puncturing his very breath and voice.

"I think it might be some kind of schizophrenia." August muttered unhappily.

"Hm? Did you say something, love?" the red-head questioned, raising her eyebrow. Her stomach was becoming more and more swollen by an approaching life inside her, with each passing moment. Katrina von Bowen sauntered over to August Rush, and gently laid her hand on his diminutive bony shoulder. She, as well as he and their friend Aiden, were getting ready to leave an abandoned place called Fillmore East Theatre. But August had taken to sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning his head back against the wall with his eyes closed, looking rather ill.

"Nothing," was the response of August.

-----

"Well…I suppose we'll be seein' you around, then, huh?" Arthur said gloomily, as August slung the strap of his cello case over his shoulder. August nodded, feeling equally as solemn for leaving the one true pal he had behind. "Good luck, then. Take care of yo' baby. And don't leave _her _over there," he gestured to Katrina, who was tearfully saying goodbye to Shanice.

"Thanks so much for--for _everything_! Without you…I wouldn't have known this soon if I was having a baby…I wouldn't know what to do!" she wailed, throwing her arms around her friend. It pained August to see Katrina cry, and he wondered how she could stay so strong and supportive when he had tears in his eyes, his nose running like a faucet.

Aiden stood from afar, watching it all. He hadn't made any friends at the Fillmore East, so he really had no one to bid farewell to. His violin case hung limply from his small grubby hand; August had said that he would compose a violin concerto just for him. And a flute concerto for Katrina, and a cello concerto for himself. "As a special treat for putting up with my moments of weirdness," August had said. Although Aiden didn't think that was reason enough to compose a whole concerto for somebody, he was rather flattered, and told August to make it nice and difficult.

It was getting dark. The moon was already visible in the sky. And it was in its waning crescent that night.

"I suppose we should go now." August put an arm around Katrina's shoulders, but both found the gesture uncomfortable as the cello case kept getting in the way. "Ready?" Katrina and Aiden agreed.

The trio stepped down the extensive metal stairs, their feet clanging all the way. August had quite a ways to walk back to his house, all the way from the city to the suburbs, but he had insisted that police wasn't the way to go. They'd do all these interrogations, and they'd alert the media right away, and…a whole bunch of chaos would insue. So they decided to just go back to their own houses. Or, in Katrina's case, her grandmother's apartment, and in Aiden's case, his parents' penthouse.

When they reached Washington Square, August stopped abruptly. "This is where we have to split up," he murmured, casting miserable glances towards Katrina. "This may be the last time we ever see each other again."

Aiden decided that he would go in the direction of his residence first, as a kind gesture to give Katrina and August some time to say goodbye alone. He hugged Katrina really tight, promising her that he would think about her every day. He even hugged August briefly and quickly. August promised that even if Aiden didn't get to play the concerto right away, as long as he heard the concerto being played by another musician, that would be enough, and he would always know that the concerto was his. "Bye," they all said, and Aiden walked off, trying to repress a few damp tears of loneliness already.

Which left Katrina and August alone in the quiet, under the pale luminescence of the Arch. No words were uttered right away, only sobs and hugs and desperate saliva-soaked smooches. The couple exchanged one last passionate kiss in the dim glow of Washington Square.

"I love you!" Katrina whimpered, sounding like a helpless puppy dog. Which she might as well call herself, pregnant and about to say goodbye to her baby's daddy, her love, her soul mate, for who knows how long?

August cried back, in a hushed tone, "I love you, Trina. If we get separated…I'll find you." Katrina buried her face in his chest, losing all control of her emotion. She clutched his shirt in her fists, so he wouldn't pull away, but like he would anyway. "I'll find you. And then…and then we're gonna--" He held Katrina in his arms, heaving breaths and sobs breaking his sentence into pieces. "--we're gonna raise our baby. We'll raise our baby, and we'll be a family. I promise," he made straight, serious eye contact with Katrina. Their teary eyes locked on one another. "Hey, I promise, okay? I promise."

They tore themselves away from each other, tearing away from pieces of themselves, quite literally in the case of the baby. August tore away from his love and the part of him that was inside her, his baby, and Katrina tore away from her love, the boy whose genetics were in her, mingling with her own genetics.

Katrina went straight ahead down the street, and August went to the right.

A piece of August went straight ahead down the street, and a piece of Katrina went to the right.

Meanwhile, Aiden tiptoed quietly up the stairs of his penthouse building.

They were all going home. After five months, one week, and six days, they were going home. Katrina was nine weeks along; the baby was 1 ¼ inches long, and it now had a basic human shape.

They were all going home.

* * *

_A/N: I really like this one. The opening scene and the last scene. The writing style was kind of like John Boyne meets Markus Zusak. Markus Zusak especially at the very beginning and the very end. John Boyne in between._

_**Now would be a nice time to remind you: I have only 26 reviews [I love them all but still; some oneshots have more reviews than me! This has fourteen chapters!] Review, suggest things, give me a huge paragraph of critique, tell me I suck, anything! Please. ;-)**_


	15. And There They Are

_A/N: This chapter I've been thinking about since I wrote the very first chapter! I've thought it over and over…and here it is! CAUTION: MELODRAMA!! 'Cause that's what I do best._

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**Chapter 15: …And There They Are**

It was completely dark, the porch light was off. August remembered the first time he stepped into this house. He'd been thirteen, just turned thirteen, and he'd smiled and cried because this was where his family would stay forever. He loved the house, how sunny and happy it looked, the light brick exterior contrasting against the rest of the white-sided houses on that drive. And it was just as pretty in the pitch black of midnight.

He located the spare key in between the leaves of a hanging plant on the porch, and shoved it quietly into the lock, turning the knob, and…_wham_. The familiar scent of fresh laundry and Mom's vanilla-scented candles hit his nose hard, just like a physical punch. He stepped into the foyer, taking his shoes off, which felt so normal. His dirty-socked feet padded across the hardwood floors.

August stopped dead in his tracks. The kitchen light was on, the dimmer switch on low, so only a faint orange glow was visible. Light enough to see, but not bright enough to read in or anything. He peeked around the corner, so he could see inside the kitchen but the inside of the kitchen couldn't see him, and found his mother sitting miserably at the table, doing nothing, her head in her hands. Her hair was tangled and frizzy, her hands trembling slightly as they covered her face.

August felt so terrible, so guilty. Look what he'd done. Causing his parents so much pain. Before he knew it, he rounded the corner, standing within about ten feet of Lyla. She didn't notice him, but her hands stopped shaking.

"Mom?" It felt like glass in his throat to choke the word out of his voice box, and it came so quietly that it wasn't hardly a whisper even. "Mom?" he repeated, a little louder this time, yet hoarse.

Lyla looked up in disbelief. Her exhausted, sagging face grew paler yet, and her mouth fell open. "Au--August?" Her voice shook. Slowly, she stood, and started to walk towards her son, to feel him, to reassure herself that she was really seeing what she was seeing, but August had already _rushed _forward, into her embrace.

"Mom! Mom! I'm so sorry, Mom! I'm so…sorry…" August stuttered into his mom's pajama robe. He was astounded with himself when his eyes remained perfectly dry.

Lyla pinned her baby to her, excruciatingly tightly, just as she had that night five years ago. "I…August, come here, baby…" _Please be real, please be real, please be real, _she chanted in her mind. _Please don't let me wake up hugging nothing. _

"I did a _really _bad thing, Mom," he moaned, sounding like a child. "Really bad. I--I ran away…with this girl…I didn't want to leave her, Mom. They were going to take her away from me! So we ran away. I convinced her that she should run away with me." He paused to take in a round of shaky hysteric breaths, while Lyla escorted him to the living room sofa, where she sat next to him and put her arm around him, rubbing his back in between his shoulder blades where he liked it. "I love her _so much_, Mom. So incredibly much! And then…And then…"

"Then what, sweetie? Then what?" Lyla urged frantically. "Tell me, August, please. Then what?"

August rocked back and forth, his distress trickling everywhere with his words. "Then she…Mom, she's _pregnant_." He whispered the word, shame filling every nook and cranny of his mentality. "She's pregnant. Mom, I _ruined _a precious girl!" he wailed. "I ruined a precious girl. Now she's--"

"Oh, my God." Lyla felt tears biting her own eyes. A grandmother, at thirty-five. Her son was no longer a virgin. He was going to be a dad, and she'd only had him for five years. And yet she was reminded of herself. She couldn't bring herself to be the least sliver angry at him. Then she'd be no better than her own father. "August…" she whispered. "…Where is she?" She said it in a similar hushed tone to when she asked her father where August was that one fateful day in the hospital.

"She's going home, too."

Louis came suddenly running down the stairs, a protective look on his face, willing to hurt anyone who was causing the commotion around here. "What 'tis it?" he demanded. But then his expression softened and just melted completely like a snowman in Miami when he caught sight of his son on the couch, sitting there, distraught like the world had just crumbled at his feet.

"Dad!" August cried.

"Son, August, it's okay." Louis stepped over and took his son in his arms. "It's okay, son. What happened? Tell us what happened."

Lyla laid her hand on Louis's arm. "He already did. He explained to me. I--I'll tell you. August, just go upstairs. Shower, change, go to bed. Please. You probably haven't bathed all this time, have you?"

August shook his head miserably, then shakily made his way up the stairs. Then he found the strength to sprint to his room, to his bathroom, and stand in front of the mirror. He looked at himself, his oily face, his disheveled hair that was in his eyes and stuck up everywhere, his spindly arms and dirt-encrusted fingers. He was a wreck, barely recognizable. Yanking his shirt up over his head, he realized that it was the first time he'd been shirtless or had any bare skin of him exposed at all since he slept with Trina. When he took advantage of her and knocked her up.

August couldn't stand to look at his own body. He laid, curled up on the bathroom tile floor, shivering and breathing in short, panicked gulps.

But then something soothed him. It was Katrina's voice. She wasn't mad at him, so why should he be mad with himself? _We'll raise our baby. We'll be a family. _he remembered saying. They couldn't be a _nice _family when the father was plagued with all kinds of guilt.

He peeled himself weakly off the floor, finished undressing, and washed away five months' worth of dirt and sweat. _Everything will be okay, _Katrina's voice said. _All okay._

-----

Katrina carefully fiddled with the lock to her grandmother's apartment with a bobby pin Shanice had given her. She honestly had no experience whatsoever in picking locks, never had she attempted it before or had a reason to but…click. It worked. She stared down at her hands, flabbergasted. Had she really just pulled that off? She tested the knob, turning it clockwise. The door opened. Katrina couldn't help but feel impressed with herself.

"Have a nice trip?" a voice suddenly murmured to her. Katrina couldn't see in the dark of the living room which the door opened up to. She spun around, her hands groping the wall for a light switch, a lamp, a flashlight, anything.

"Who's there?" she asked frantically.

The voice chuckled. The mysterious dark being that could be anywhere--to her right, to her left, in front of her or even behind her--chuckled. "Don't you recognize me? It's Aubrey. Fancy meeting you here, Miss Delinquent." Katrina's eyes were adjusting to the dark by then, and she could faintly make out a figure in pajamas with her hair in twin braids. "I heard you picking the lock," Aubrey explained.

"Aubrey!" Katrina hissed. "You scared me half to death!"

"And the last five months haven't scared you one bit? Where'd he drag you to, huh? Where you raped, my poor little sweetiekins?" Aubrey deadpanned in a mock baby-voice. Katrina felt anger woosh up within her; she had a feeling she knew about August, but how? It was in the dead of night; pieces of her were scattered around various parts of New York. She wanted to get to bed and cry it out.

Hands clenching into fists at her sides, she whisper-cried, "No, I was not raped! And I wasn't _that _scared…and how do you know about--about him?" she asked more calmly.

"Not that hard to figure out. You always seem like the kind of girl that'll just take off with the first male that sweeps her off her feet. It doesn't matter if you have real feelings for him or not. Unless of course you really do love that smokin' hot midget you ran away with." Aubrey could not suppress it; she had to laugh at the phrase _smokin' hot midget_.

"He is _not _a midget!" Katrina said, admittedly half-laughing. "He's taller than me!" Her laughter terminated immediately when she realized what she'd have to admit later on. Her baby, which was nine weeks along and was 1 ¼ inches long and had a basic human shape. "Aubrey. Listen. Please, listen to me."

"What is it, love?" she said, mock-pleasantly.

Katrina took in a deep breath. "I wasn't raped." Aubrey pointed out that she'd already said that. "I wasn't raped," she continued, "but I'm not a virgin, either." Aubrey's mouth dropped wide open. She was going to start laughing; Katrina ignored the biting in her eyes and let the news slip past her lips before Aubrey could get the first _ha _out. "I'm having a baby, Bree…with August."

There was a long, treacherous pause. Warm, desperate tears ran silently down Katrina's cheeks; she'd been repressing them for a long, long time. The reality suddenly hit her: a baby needed lots of care, of love, of money. Her parents would never help out. Labor would hurt, terribly. And she was scared of everything. She had hardly ever done the dishes in her life, and as for meal preparation she'd only made a sandwich once or twice. She wasn't ready to be a decent mother at all! "I'm pregnant, Aubrey," she moaned, her voice broken. "Th-th-that's why I decided to come back. I'm going to have a baby…"

Aubrey dropped all sarcasm like a hot potato there, and put her arms protectively around her sister. "God, what did he do to you, Trina? What did that…that _slime _make you do?" She elongated the word and spit it out bitterly. That made Katrina sob even more profusely.

"Don't call him that! Don't you _dare _call him that, ever!" she practically screamed into her sister's soft blonde hair. "It's not his fault. He never made me do anything. I agreed to run away, I agreed to have sex, I agreed when he suggested we go back home--_yes_,it was his idea to come back--and Aubrey… I _love _him, Aubrey. August is my one true love and I won't ever let him go no matter how much you guys hate him." Her hand went subconsciously and protectively to her stomach. "And I love our baby, no matter how much I don't want to give birth to him or her. I also think August loves our baby more than I do. He won't leave me--"

Abruptly, she gasped and her speech was cut short. She noticed her parents, standing there on the other side of the room. Her dad had a baseball bat, meant to club any intruders, which now hung limply in his hand at his side. Her mom stood there, still as a statue made of stone and a good amount of shock.

"What's this about a baby?" Holly von Bowen asked, her voice quaking like the soil of the earth along a fault line, and although she had heard her daughter very clearly--she practically screamed it--she demanded an answer, something to shake her out of her state of awe.

David's face flushed red in fury, Katrina could tell, even in the dimness. "That's it. I'm gonna slaughter that boy for you, pumpkin. We'll help you find a place to put the baby, but in the mean time I'm gonna rip that scum to pieces. Don't you worry, darling. When I'm done with him, he's not going to even have a p--" His violent series of vows was butchered short with the hysteric howl of his oldest girl.

Katrina couldn't control the harsh screams that emitted from her. Hearing her daddy, the one that always told her to be sweet and gentle and then people would be nice to her, saying all these terrible things about her August…And although she knew Daddy would _never _really do any of that, just hearing it made her want to just run away again. Have the baby in the Fillmore. "_Don't touch him_!" she screeched.

David filled with remorse. He rushed over and picked his daughter up in his arms, and still held on tight when she tried to fight herself free. "Oh, I'm so sorry, kitty. I won't hurt your little boyfriend, I just--"

"Katrina," Holly murmured gently, laying her hand on her shoulder as David held her, "just calm down. Get a hold of yourself; getting upset isn't good for you _or _the baby. Come on, let's…I'll run you a bubble bath, and we can talk this over, woman-to-woman, how does that sound?" Katrina sniffed and numbly agreed.

"I don't wanna but the baby anywhere!" she whimpered as she sauntered weakly towards the bathroom. "I wanna keep it." She sounded like a toddler whining about a stray puppy she'd found on the street.

Neither Holly, David, or Aubrey said anything to answer her. They all fell silent. Katrina slowly calmed down as the scent of the lavender foam clogged her nose.

Louis and Lyla sat together, pale and motionless, grasping one another's hand, while August fell into a tranquil sleep in his bedroom upstairs.

The events had rocked each family's world. And all they wanted to do was sort things out.

All the two teenage loves wanted, however, was to see each other again.

* * *

_A/N: I can't decide if I like this chapter or I if hate it. I think I flooded the room with Katrina's tears, and August's shirtless breakdown episode was a little more emotion from him than I expected to put in here…and the endings for both scenes were abrupt…but I think it'll be okay…_


	16. Jerivale High

_A/N: I had plans for how this would go, I really did. But then I was like "…wait!" and I thought this idea would be a whole lot cooler ;-)_

_**IMPORTANT/INTERSTING DISCOVERY: **__In the deleted scenes, if you watch them with the subtitles, you get to see that Evan's orphanage friend (y'know, that kind of chubby one that's all like 'He doesn't hear anything!') is named Peter. It's hard to hear, but with the subtitles Mannix (the bully) says "Hey! Peter!" or something. That's interesting! I always wondered what his name was._

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**Chapter 16: Jerivale High**

A light breeze of gossip hummed through the halls of Jerivale High, telling a sensationalized tale of a certain junior's summertime _adventure_. First, the teller would have to reassure the listener that his name was, actually, "August Rush" no matter how weird or awkward it sounded. At first the listener thought he or she was hearing a fairy tale. But they weren't, the teller would insist. The story went on to tell that this August went off with a girl that summer and part of autumn, and that's why he'd missed nearly half the first semester of school.

"Knocked the girl up!" one teller exclaimed.

"That scrawny kid in my Biology class? No way!" the listener gasped.

And the listeners became tellers, those who listened to them became tellers; the breeze of gossip became a hurricane, and the hum became a roar. The school was lit alive with the arrival of the news. The hurricane made August's eyes itch and the roar made his ears burn. It used to be, for his first two years of high school, that no one really knew him. The ones that were in his classes--he was particularly famous among the advanced orchestra--and a few teachers--particularly the advanced orchestra director--knew _about _him, but they didn't truly, truly _know _him in a personal sense. Now _everyone _was talking about him.

All 1,487 students, from freshman to senior. The teachers looked at him funny. The students teased him senseless. They all seemed taken aback that the shy, smallest ham on the plate would run off and get a girl pregnant.

In all of it, it didn't surprise him when the school counselor subtly pulled him into an empty classroom and secretively asked if he would come in and "have a nice little chat" with her in her office during study hall. _Nice little chat_? August thought as he reluctantly agreed, _what; will she have tea and Twinkies or something?_

A pack of popular senior boys strolled casually over to him as he was on his way towards said _chat_. "Congrats on the little bambino, Rush-y!" their ringleader cooed as he inconsiderately flicked August's temple, in the same manner he would shoo a fly away. The five boys slapped high fives and ran off before August could defend himself, as if he had any idea on how to do that anyway.

August thought briefly of Mannix, the orphanage bully. Mannix would have a heyday if he ever found out about it…August couldn't believe it; Mannix was grown up and out of the orphanage by now. If August was now nearly seventeen, that made Mannix about nineteen or twenty! And Peter, his only friend from back then…

Wait. Where was he going again? Stupid flashbacks…

Ah, the counselor's. Great. Peachy. Spectacular.

The door, different from all the other doors as it was decorated with _Don't Do Drugs _and _Meth makes you UGLY _posters and one with a slogan that _Abstinence is Awesome: Save Sex for Marriage!_, pointed the way to the counselor's office.

August scowled at the abstinence poster. "A bit late for that, aren't we, now?" he asked the paragraph on unwanted pregnancies.

He knocked, three steady-paced times, just like he had always done when it came time to recite the password at the Fillmore. A cheery voice yelled, "Come in!" in a sing-song tone that made August even more irritated.

He turned the doorknob and opened it, noticing with horror the inside of the office. It looked like a freaking nursery! Puppets, papers, crayons, even a _Twister_ mat on the floor. What did _Twister_ have to do with the pathetic emotions of today's troubled teens? On the wall was another abundance of posters, this time of how to stop bullying and how to talk to your parents about sex. And then there was one that showed a football team, in a muddy field, and instead of huddling together, they were _hugging_. There were no words to that particular poster, and August wasn't sure if it was trying to say something about sportsmanship or gay rights. The room smelled of overwhelming Febreeze room spray.

"Oh yes, August, come on in! It's a pleasure to see you. Come, have a seat!" The counselor, Mrs. McKibbon, gestured to a chair opposite her desk that looked fit for a kindergartener. August might be skinny and otherwise muscle-less, but he had considerably long legs, and he felt like a spider, only a foot or two off the ground with them miles out in front of him. "So," Mrs. McKibbon went right into it, sounding almost _accomplished_. "We've missed you around here. What have you been up to?"

August sputtered around his first word, opening his mouth then closing it back up numerous times for numerous minutes, not quite sure what to say. "I--I…Well, this summer I…no…"

Mrs. McKibbon sighed, losing her annoying cheerful spark for a moment. "Well," she said, "If you don't want to tell me it yourself, I'll just ask you: these profane rumors about you. What do you think of them? Are they true?" She tapped her fingers on the desk, waiting for an answer.

August looked down, ashamed. "…Yes, all of them," he muttered quietly.

Mrs. McKibbon pursed her deflated thin lips together. "Hm," was all she said for a moment, "How old are you? Sixteen, seventeen?" August nodded, not indicating to which. He was only a month short of seventeen. The cute little boy prodigy had to grow up sometime. "And this girl? Does she go to this school?" He answered the negative. He had no idea where Katrina was now, but he didn't dare say that out loud.

The abstinence posters danced in front of his vision, taunting him, laughing at him more bitterly and more hurtfully than any of the students had yet. _Should've paid more attention to us, August!…I bet you're sorry now!…Have fun coughing up cash for the rest of your life!…Enjoy the smelly diapers and sleepless nights!…You'll never have a career now! _

"Are you all right?" Mrs. McKibbon asked, her eyebrows knitting in concern. August, with his jumbled thoughts and whirling headache, shook his head no but answered "yes."

Mrs. McKibbon sighed again, glanced at the baseball-patterned clock and said, "You may go back to study hall now." August looked up at her questioningly, not quite believing that he would be let off so easily, after just two questions. "Yes, I said you may go," the counselor confirmed, and August was gladly on his way out.

He left the office with the all too familiar feeling that he always experienced after meeting the social workers, back in the old days. Somewhere between awkward and grateful and melancholy. Grateful that the meeting was over, melancholy that he'd ever had to go through that in the first place. The two feeling mingled awkwardly inside the emotional plane of his mind, along the belt of thoughts and beliefs in the galaxy of human conscience.

The first social worker he could remember, back when he was around six years old, was an aging portly gray-haired guy, named Mr. Aarons--he always found that lots of the social workers had really common surnames.

Mrs. McKibbon wouldn't stick in August's mind as the first school counselor he'd ever encountered; she would just fade in his memory as just another one of those social workers, indistinguishable among the countless other faces that had spoke with him on opposite sides of a desk.

Except Mr. Jeffries. Of course, not Mr. Jeffries, the one who had changed his life.

"_Remember, there's a whole world full of wind chimes." _

-----

_Violin, mezzo piano, adagio. D, E, F-sharp, C, A, B, E, F-sharp, G, C, B, one octave higher F-sharp, E, D, C…_

"August!" the algebra teacher snapped, sending him back down to earth from his daydream with the force three times the speed of light. "If _a_ squared plus _b _squared equals _c_ squared, then what's the value of _c _if _a_ equals six and _b_ equals nine?"

"Three?"

Mr. Zimmer threw his hands in the air, frustrated. "No, don't subtract the two!" He gestured to the drawing of a right triangle on the blackboard, the blackboard whose powder always made August's nose sting. He pointed at the top slanting line. "The hypotenuse! The hypotenuse is bigger than both! So even twelve, which also is incorrect, would've been a more logical in-your-head guess!"

"Twelve point five?"

"For God's sake, use your calculator as instructed!" Mr. Zimmer bellowed. Snickers shot through the room, ricocheting off the walls and windows and all landing like missiles on August's rapid heartbeat. At least when he didn't listen and went off doing his own thing in Julliard, he pretty much got praised for his musical gifts and eventually found his parents because of his short attention span, but acting like a retard in math class at JHS wouldn't help him locate Katrina in the least.

The snickers turned into giggles, the missiles into atomic bombs. The explosions reminded August of crashing symbols, mixing with his heartbeat which was like a pounding timpani. _Bang, bang, crash, crash. Brass section, crescendo into fortissimo, molto allegro. G, B, G, C, G, D, C… One-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a-four… _

The laughs sounded like fluttering flutes and oboes and clarinets, all on their highest of high notes, tremoring.

"August! Answer the question. At least try!" Mr. Zimmer's voice came as a blasting trombone, and as he became more exasperated, a French horn. Like in the Shostakovich concerto, final movement, while the cello grinded at its strings the French horn danced in front of it, exploding with the four-note theme. _C, B, E, D…C, B, E, D…_

"Nine squared plus six squared then take the square root of that!" shouted a blonde girl he recognized as Lexi Block, the first girl August had noticed that she had big breasts, which was three months before Katrina happened. Her voice came as a clarinet on a middle-high octave. _D, F, E, C…_

His finger hung over the 6 key, but he was shaking too hard to press it down properly. He tried to, but hit the pi key instead.

The bell rang. Thankfully, that didn't come to him as music. Just the sound of a school bell ringing.

With loads of grief from the members of the class, he gathered his things and headed on weak knees towards the next class, orchestra. At least there music wouldn't get in the way and just cause more problems for him instead of solving them. At least there he could get so lost in his music that he forgot who he was. That he was a prodigy, that he was a teenage father-to-be, that his name was August but used to be Evan, that he was a human being at all. His soul merged with the music and they became one, and August passed numbingly into indifference to the nasty world around him.

-----

August really regretted dousing his cell phone in water before he left for the adventure of the summer. Why'd he do that? He hadn't needed to. He could've just left it behind and they wouldn't have tracked him down. It was completely unnecessary, and stupid, and now it only made things excruciatingly impossible for him to find her back. No, he couldn't just use the wall-mounted one in the kitchen, _no_, because he couldn't remember her number for the life of him. It'd just packed its bags and ran away from his memory as he ran away with Katrina. He'd searched all over for the piece of paper she'd given him with the number on it, but he had no such luck finding it.

She'd be eleven weeks into it now. Two weeks he'd gone without her there every waking moment. And it hurt, not being able to turn around and see her ringlets and that little girlish grin, that pale face with a thin spattering of freckles across her nose, and her big caramel-brown eyes that reminded August of the shade of varnish on his cello.

"Har' to believe he's sixteen already, eh?" Uncle Marshall playfully nudged August's shoulder, shaking him out of his thoughts a little less rudely than the method used in math earlier that day. "He's like Louie, looks a bit young for his age. I'd guess him around, eh, 'round 'bout fourteen. Something like tha'."

August found himself in his living room, in the middle of one of his uncle's famous monthly visits. When Mom first started referring to Marshall coming over as the 'monthly visit,' August--around fourteen at the time--had stared at her for a long, long time, his eyebrows knitted, his jaw dropped in peculiar disbelief.

"_Monthly visit_?" he gasped. Mom was very classy; it wasn't like her to mention _that_.

Mom burst out laughing. "No, no, silly. Not _that_, I mean your uncle Marshall is coming over for supper this evening. He tries to stop by every month, you know!"

August joined the hilarity. "Oh! _That_," he sighed, relieved.

And this was the monthly visit, at the worst possible time, after a terrible day of school, two weeks after five months of…adventure, let's call it that.

Marshall declared suddenly, in that Irish accent that was even thicker than Dad's, "Well, I guess we've moved righ' on into the next generation, aye, little nephew?" It took August a moment to figure out what he meant by 'next generation.'

He and Katrina were trying to escape being the 'next generation' of Louis and Lyla. But ended up being just that, not including the five-month runaway status. Pregnant and separated. Only August knew about his baby. And he _really _hoped he didn't have to wait eleven years before seeing Katrina or his child. "The next generation," he echoed quietly. How did the first generation come to a close?

A light clicked on inside his head. A sort of spotlight shone in his eyes, and he was suddenly in a stiff, uncomfortable tuxedo. If he could've gotten to that damn guitar even six years earlier, as a little five-year-old, the first generation would've lasted only five years. If he could get himself to compose another piece within only a month, the second cycle of weird mishaps of love stories would come to a close before Katrina even had the baby. Before she could even find out the gender.

He flashed back to the present. "The next generation!" he declared more audibly, his face glowing with epiphany and his mind buzzing with the perfect solution to all his problems. "That's it!" He tried to review the melodies that were bothering him during math class today.

Aiden's violin concerto. That was a great place to start, considering most of the music arrived in his head in the form of the nasally croon of a violin.

August saw the layout of the concerto. Four movements: Adagio, Allegro, Cadenza, and Scherzo. _Well, be sure to make it nice and difficult for me, then! _Aiden said while casually dusting rosin of the face of his instrument with his finger, trying to get back in there behind the fingerboard.

Uncle Marshall stared at him strangely, raising one eyebrow. "Wha--?" Then his eyes widened and he chuckled in realization. "Aye, well, I s'pose you know wha' to do then, little man!" he gestured toward the aging cheapie upright piano in the corner, up against the stairs. He turned to Louis. "See? Ah, he's a smart boy, that one, Louie! Took him two weeks to figure it out and it took his ol' man a whole decade to realize it all for himself!"

"Like you knew the secret to everythin', bro. " was all Louis said in response, rather flatly and irritably.

-----

August glanced at the clock on the wall, just as it was chiming two o'clock a.m. An abundance of sloppily scribbled-on papers were strewn around him, each decorated with a hand-written spattering of notes all over them, dynamics and key changes and tempo specifications in August's careless cursive. The first movement of the violin concerto had been completed.

He made no effort to stifle his colossal yawn, and when he tried to stand up he nearly collapsed under the extreme pressure of his fatigue.

But all the exhaustion and discomfort didn't matter, and neither was he ashamed of being up this late, because now he was one gigantic step closer in the race towards finding Katrina before she was full-term.

* * *

_A/N: This was like the longest chapter ever…I love it! The math class scene is my favorite part of this whole story…so very August-y…_


	17. For A Good Cause

_A/N: Sorry this took forever. I just am sort of getting tired of this story. I mean, I've been working on it for months, and I'm getting through with school, eager to get that the hell over with, and I plan to write an original, non-fanfiction novel this summer. I've got Spring fever, so to speak. I'm lazy._

_So forth, this chapter is very obvious and fast-paced. Clichéd, etcetera._

* * *

**Chapter 17: For a Good Cause**

_January. Katrina's fifth month of maternity._

An awful scent of charred batter accompanied by the steady sound of sizzling filled the air, and Katrina let out a little squeal and dashed over to the frying pan. Her hands cupped her nose against the stench, which was threatening to bring on a terrible wave of pregnancy nausea.

"Mom, I burnt the pancakes!" she cried. "I burnt the pancakes!"

Holly came running from around the corner, coughing and waving her arms around. "Katrina! I told you to watch that! What if you were an adult in future life without Mom to come and…_extinguish _the disaster for you?" She scraped the ruined excuse for pancakes in the garbage. "Trina, what I'm trying to say is, you really have to learn how to be responsible. Keeping that baby is not going to be my job, not your dad's, not Aubrey's. You and this boy are going to have to do it."

"What does burning pancakes have to do with responsibility with children?"

"Kids and husbands like pancakes. Not charcoal." Holly laid her hands sympathetically on Katrina's shoulders.

Katrina looked down shamefully, imagining setting her NYC penthouse that she would one day share with August and their baby--possibly bab_ies_ if it was that far in the future--on fire, leaving her family hungry and upset and without a house or breakfast. They would nominate her for worst housewife on the planet, and she'd win!

"Help me, Mom," she whimpered.

Holly sighed, thinking things over. Katrina wanted that baby, but she wanted also to cop out on all the negative parts of it. Teens like her saw parenthood as fun, with the cuddly babies to hold and spouses to kiss and a pretty house, but failed to see the behind-the-scenes maintenance that would be required of them.

"How about a babysitting job?" she suggested hesitantly.

"No! Then I'd be burning someone _else's _house down, instead of my own, which I think, apart from being horrible in any case, would be twice as bad!" Katrina stomped her foot irritably.

"Helping out at a daycare? Then at least you'd have supervisors and you wouldn't be on your own."

"No. Just no. A bunch of sick, squealing toddlers wreaking hell and havoc and puking up all over me. I want to work with all ages of kids, so I have tons of experience."

"Volunteering at an orphanage, then? Good Lord, Katrina, don't be so picky! Motherhood doesn't have time for you to be picky!"

Katrina fell silent. For a moment, she choked up with impending tears; her thoughts went instantly to August. Orphanages. She could teach some little orphans music; the basic do-re-mi Old McDonald Mother Goose stuff, for a start. How much of a difference something like that--someone dropping by to teach the orphaned children music--would've made for him.

She looked up at her mother, unable to control her crying now. It was soft and subtle, but still her eyes flooded for her boyfriend who she missed so dearly. She nodded. "Okay, Mom," she squeaked, "I'll do that. I'll volunteer. That'll work."

"Katrina, why are you crying?" Holly surrounded her daughter in a hug. "A little overwhelmed by all of this, are you? The food, the job, the baby in general. I know."

Katrina nodded, even though that was only part of it. She was bombarded with mental images of a little boy version of August, or Evan, or whatever his name is or was, curled up in a corner, hugging his knees to his chest, so lonely for the parents he knew were out there but he was told were dead.

He'd spared her details in specific about his early years. The name of the orphanage, where it was, the other kids, the caretakers, or any real in-depth particulars about his feelings toward the place in general.

She would be making a difference for other kids. Any one of those kids could be just like August.

What an honor. An impromptu honor, but…she felt like she was getting back at the entities that had stolen her boyfriend's childhood.

-----

_One month later. February. Month six._

"I can't believe you _actually _found an orphanage desperate enough to let you volunteer." Aubrey unleashed her signature rude cackle, examining the envelope decorated with the orphanage's name and slogan. _Changing lives since 1916_. "A pregnant teenage girl, especially."

Katrina tossed a dirty maternity shirt from the dirty clothes basket at her sister. "Hey, I'm free of charge, you know. They don't have to pay me, so I don't see why they wouldn't take me in. Besides, it would be a good thing for the kids. To let a nice girl teach them a note or two. The orphanage is all-boys, and so I'd be, like, the first girl they ever met other than the old lady caretakers. It'd be an important social skill for them." Katrina remembered her first date with August. _You know, I don't have much experience with girls._

The meetings and interviews she'd done with the caretakers at the orphanage had gone wonderfully. They were such nice ladies, so motherly, even nicer and more motherly than her own mother. The children had been extremely well-behaved. They were rather shy, and they tended to stare at her rather uncomfortably--particularly at her growing stomach--but when she speak with a few of the kids, they were very polite and made well conversation. There was only one boy her age there, a boy about seventeen to Katrina's sixteen, that refused to be placed with a foster family and would just continue to live out his days there until he was eighteen and had to leave.

Her first day on the job was the day after tomorrow. Saturday. She had been instructed to begin teaching some of the younger boys the basic terminology of music, and to show them what sheet music looked like. After that, she would help organize some filing cabinets and watch over some of the infant boys for a short while before going home.

The only bittersweet part of it was, whenever she encountered a sad-looking boy, or even one that simply wasn't smiling or amused by something, she was directly bombarded by disturbing images of a smaller August, curled up in a corner with his tiny bony knees hugged to his chest, trying to shut himself out from a world that told him that either his parents were dead or they didn't want him. Tears gushed from vision-August's eyes, and even though she couldn't exactly hear it herself, an ever-constant symphony swirled inside of him, assuring him the outside entities were wrong. That he truly did have a Mommy and Daddy, all he had to do was listen and it'd be all okay.

"Katrina…" Aubrey cooed in a sing-song tone and waved a pink fingernail-ed hand in her sister's face. "You're spacing out again."

Katrina shook her head, cleared her throat as well as her thoughts. "Sorry," she said.

"Isn't it amazing, how just a few minutes of pleasure just completely rocked everyone's world like this?" Aubrey asked suddenly. "You come home, get completely chewed out by Mom and Dad, you get sent to a special school for pregnant girls, and now you're volunteering at an orphanage for boys. And mostly, I'm stuck here in grandma's apartment in a never-ending summer vacation to NYC which was only supposed to last three weeks. It's flippin' _February_. My new school sucks--"

Katrina couldn't believe she was getting the feel-sorry-for-me-and-the-pain-you-caused-all-of-us speech from Aubrey again. "--And all so I can have a baby and locate the baby's daddy who you think doesn't even care about me anymore. I get it, I get it!" she finished. She was done being offended by it. She was beyond caring.

What she cared about now was preparing her lesson and helping the future Augusts of the world, and of course locating August himself before it was time to have their baby.

-----

Katrina pulled up to the orphanage, nervously cradling her stomach. A thick blanket of crystal-white snow covered the ground and sat casually on atop the fences surrounding the facility. Some of the boys were outside having snowball fights. Katrina recognized the older one, Peter, putting the finishing touches on a snowman with a littler child. She smiled at them. Peter was probably better at taking care of kids than she was, which alarmed her ever so slightly. She got out of the car, thanked her mother for the ride, and felt the warmth of the inside of the main building heat her face, redden her cheeks.

She'd just gotten back from an ultrasound, to check up on the baby. She'd been able to learn the baby's gender, and they told her it was going to be a--

"Oh, hello, there, little mommy!" The _head caretaker_--so to speak--Mrs. Acheson cooed, and patted Katrina's tummy. "Wow, that baby! Growing bigger and bigger every day, isn't she?" She gave a warm chuckle, and a small queue of boys gathered around to stare at what was going on.

"Um, actually…" Katrina began to correct, wringing her hands in a sheepish sort of way, "He. The baby's a boy. I just found out today."

"Well, isn't that just a blessing!" Mrs. Acheson gave a petite round of individual applause.

"Yeah. It is. Going to be just like his daddy, I bet he is…" Katrina responded shyly, trailing off to keep her mind away from August as she was in an orphanage environment. "I'd better get to work now," she said quickly, coming to her own aid against the awkward silence that took place after.

Mrs. Acheson nodded vigorously, and clapped her hands, commanding the boys' attention. "Alright, kids, it's time for your first lesson with Katrina! Gather 'round!" A good-sized crowd of little boys, medium boys, and bigger boys queued up around her, eagerly asking her questions already, the simple, childish ones along the lines of _'What's a oh-kesra?' _and of the _'Who is Beethoven?' _variety.

"That's an excellent place to start," she praised the one who asked what an orchestra is. "An orchestra is a big group of people who get together and play their instruments for _huge _crowds. Can anyone tell me what kinds of instruments you'll find in an orchestra?" She smiled excitedly back at the grinning little faces, the chubby cheeks, the dimpled cheeks, the button noses. Each of them innocent but different in its own little way.

"A…a vy-lin?" one boy quietly suggested, a blush crossing the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, a violin!"

"A cello?"

"Yes, very good!" Then she became more mysterious, but energetic still, despite. "Is there a guitar in an orchestra?" she asked, testing them. No one volunteered. The boys looked to each other, exchanging glances of confusion, shrugs all around.

Peter raised his pudgy hand, a mischievous smirk gracing his normally vacant expression. "Not a lot, but sometimes. One composer I know of wrote a song for orchestra and a guitar." Katrina wondered for a moment if he was referring to August.

"Which composer would that be, Peter?" she inquired, dropping her sugary tone for she found it unnecessary when addressing a seventeen-year-old boy. August's age.

"Um…" Peter shuffled uncomfortably and bit his lip. "He's one of those modern composers. He's not dead yet…at least I don't think he is…August Rush? He had a guitar in his rhapsody, right?" Something between awe and mourning moved behind the shade of his brown eyes. His expression changed ever so slightly.

Her baby boy gave a gigantic kick. Katrina swallowed hard. "Yeah! Wouldn't you believe I went to one of his concerts!" Peter gulped as equally noticeably. All sullenness was immediately erased from his composure; a sort of frantic concern, a bombardment of a thousand questions appeared to circle his head. Katrina could see it; it was invisible, but she could feel it.

"Speaking of," she insisted, eager to keep the lesson moving smoothly and to get out from under the pressure of the awkward bring-up of August, "while we're talking about composers, let's talk about one of those dead ones. I think someone asked who Beethoven was? Let's talk about him for a while, shall we?"

A thousand intrigued little heads nodded in agreement.

-----

Snow sprinkled down from the sky, accumulating around the suburb like dust on an abandoned Stradivari. August watched calmly from his bedroom window, eyeing the delicate winter world outside like a sort of supervisor, an overseer to the seasonal weather doing it's job. He quietly hummed Chopin's _Nocturne in E-flat major_, tapping his index finger on the window sill to the rhythm. A waltz-y, romantic piece that didn't sound right with his deepened voice, yet that didn't stop him.

It was on this day exactly six years ago that he left the orphanage for good.

"I'm leaving, Pete," he'd murmured, his slurring voice not quite sounding like his normal self. "I'm finding my parents. Don't tell _anyone _where I've gone." He'd pulled on that red coat, and those worn old boots, and headed out onto the road. Round One.

Round Two. Baby. Good God, he needed to find her, the both of them, before the baby was born. No one wanted to perform his concerto. No one wanted to perform his old rhapsody, even.

He changed his humming to Bruckner's _Kyrie Eleison_, dropping it down two octaves for the soprano and alto parts and raising it one for the bass solos. Three months left till the baby was born.

Hurry up, August. Please hurry.

* * *

_A/N: Like I said, pretty drab. I like the end with August best. Anyhow, two really gorgeous pieces I mentioned in the last scene, and I recommend them both._


	18. All Grown Up Now

_A/N: Lots of typos in the last chapter I noticed. I'll get back and fix them when I feel like it. _

* * *

**Chapter 18: All Grown Up Now**

"Altos, you're sharp, just a bit," August called as he waved his arms around with the tempo of the piece.

Reverend J stood back and smirked proudly at the prodigy he'd volunteered to conduct the church choir for him. Hope had insisted. And he did so look like he was having fun, doing something other than making instrumental music, but guiding others in their music-making.

"That's good for now, guys," Reverend said abruptly, with a clap or two of his hands in order to get the choir's attention and to signal them to stop. "Great rehearsal. See you same time next week." He turned to the boy he once called _angel_. "You too, August?" he asked.

August nodded and wiped some sweat from his forehead. Even though he'd just been directing a small church choir, he took it so emotionally and seriously as though he was conducting an entire orchestra, getting lost in it, getting carried away with the current of the music, and ended up perspiring like Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic.

Reverend gave him a thumbs-up of approval, and when he walked up to August to clap him on the shoulder for the good work, he realized with terrible alarm that August was just as tall as him; they were eye-level. He faintly remembered the eleven-year-old mystery that fell an inch or two short of his shoulders. So he shook August's hand--like men, the two of them--and he headed off back to his office.

"Yes, you're welcome, Rev," the grown prodigy who was no longer a child said, with only his dimples as he smiled to point towards any boyhood.

The choir put their sheet music away, climbed out of their white satin robes, and left the sanctuary in all different directions, off to their own business, except for Hope, who left her robe on and just stood there, grinning at August, as though expecting something. Wordlessly, she and August took a seat next to each other on the piano bench. Not the same piano they'd played scales on so many years beforehand, but the piano in the sanctuary, the luminescence that came in through the stained-glass windows casting a collage of colors on their faces and bodies.

"So, how have things been for you?" Hope felt stupid asking August, the one who couldn't stay out of trouble these days it seemed, how his life was going.

"Fine." His voice was emotionless, flat. He began playing the infamous _Moonlight Sonata _on the piano.

"Those rumors going around the news about you. Funny, aren't they? You, getting some girl pregnant and returning so she can have a doctor. You'd _never _do anything like that." She paused, and hesitantly brought her hand up and touched his cheek with the back of her palm. "I don't think any of us except you will ever know why you did it or why you came back when you did. It's _your _story, isn't it?"

August stopped playing suddenly, mid-phrase, mid-chord. He turned his gaze away from the rickety black-and-white keys and focused his eyes on Hope, surprised that she thought that high of him. "I'm not that innocent anymore," he said seriously, although it did nothing to really point to the contrary of what she was saying.

"Why?" Hope narrowed her eyes at him in confusion.

He mumbled way under his breath that the rumors were quite true. She didn't hear him. He repeated the phrase. She still didn't catch what he was trying to get across.

"I said, the rumors are all true!" he practically shouted at her, causing her to wince back a little. She stared at him in shock; she didn't believe it. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Hope. I broke the Sixth Commandment, and I'm paying for it." For a moment, he felt he was going to cry, but he caught himself and settled for short, trembling breaths instead. He was already getting into a fight with a childhood friend; now was not the time to start blubbering.

Hope stammered on, choosing her words carefully then throwing some phrases away altogether, before simply scooting closer to him in perfect silence. It broke her, knowing now that she was not the only one that had ever kissed her August. "I'm not mad at you," she finally choked out. "And I'm not disappointed. I know you're not an angel." She wanted him to tell her about this girl, but she didn't ask. By the way he talked, she was pretty sure he thought of the girl as a mistake. Didn't he?

August's breathing slowed down, gradually, until the tempo of his lungs steadied back to normal. He broke the long pause, "…You're not?" he asked, in a bit of disbelief. A passionate religious person like Hope, he would've guessed, was bound to be disgusted with him for such an action.

But then again, that was simply a stereotype. He knew nothing about Hope. They'd lost contact, she'd probably grown, changed. Just like he had: from _Music is all around us, all you have to do is listen, _to becoming frustrated with the music that got in the way of his schoolwork, from childish stares and glares to looking away in sheepish discomfort. Perhaps she had changed in those ways, too.

He realized there was no reason to be uncomfortable admitting he had no idea where Katrina was now, and so that's just what he did. He told Hope all about her. That she was his first girlfriend ever, first kiss ever. That she claimed his virginity and he claimed hers. That she was due in about or less than three months. That he still loved her.

Hope gazed down at the piano keys, and smoothed her choir robe over her lap with a sullen hand. "And me? Where do I come in, in all of this? What do you think I can do about it? I helped you find your parents, how can I help you find _her_?"

August thought again, for quite some time. "You don't have to do a thing, Hope. This is my mess, and I'll clean it up myself."

He remembered, with a deep aching in the heaviness of his heart, how he and Hope had shared a quick but tight hug after the concert six years ago, to which August had proceeded on to dashing over to his parents and hugging them like he could not even recollect, not even now. After that…that's where it went blurry, then black for a moment.

What happened after the flash of black didn't matter.

Hope gasped suddenly, burst into smiles, and grabbed August by the shoulders. "I know!" she cried, "You should be in another concert! Then she can see your name on the flier, come to the performance, and find you! Just like your parents!"

"That," August replied, dashing Hope's hopes, "was my original plan. But you see, I've been having some minor difficulties with that." He rolled his eyes sarcastically. "No one likes my new compositions. My violin concerto got rejected, and my new rhapsody as well." Hope opened her mouth optimistically to say something, but he cut her off. "And, before you suggest it, I can't seem to get any instrumental performances arranged either. No one wants me to perform. It's weird; for years they pleaded with me to do this and perform this and compose that, but now when I finally get on that they don't like me anymore. What's up with that?"

Hope could do nothing but shrug. "Try harder. Keep going. You haven't lost all hope yet."

August glared at her, his blue irises freezing into her pools of chocolate-brown eyes. "You're right."

-----

"If you're having a baby, you might as well ask for pay," Peter said logically while gawking as always at Katrina's stomach during her break, as they were conversing in one of the boys' bunkrooms. "You know, for diapers and bottles and cribs and stuff." Then his expression suddenly darkened. "You _are _keeping it, aren't you? You don't want to send it to a place like this, right?"

Katrina swallowed hard and bit her lip. The thought of her son in an orphanage without her and August deeply disturbed her, even after discovering what a nice place this was. "Of course I'm keeping him."

"Not all of us here are orphans whose parents are dead. Lots of us are here because our parents didn't want us," Peter pointed out unexpectedly. "Mine are dead, I'm pretty sure." He didn't look the least bit depressed over the aforementioned phrase. He brightened up a little. "But I had this friend. His parents were alive. And they did want him. He somehow ended up here; it was really bizarre. I--I don't even know how it happened."

"That story rings a bell." Katrina grew quiet, a sort of dread pitting in her stomach. She glanced out the window at the snow-impregnated landscape. During the summer, she'd been told, a wheat field grew out there, an extensive one that the boys liked to go and explore and play in and what not. Somehow, when she thought the words _wheat field_, it came through to her in August's voice.

No. No, she thought, it couldn't be. She didn't bother asking. There were so many orphanages in the state of New York, what were the chances?

"Probably 'cause he's, like all famous and stuff now." Peter sounded bitter. "He ran away one night, and I never saw him again. We were just little kids then. Well, about ten or something."

Katrina's mouth dropped. She felt a slight poke inside of her, her baby.

Then again, this was August and those around him we were dealing with. Anything, and that went for this instance as well, could happen. It was all possible.

"Was his name," Katrina asked, her voice wavering, "by any negligible chance…" she uttered the name. Eh, then she touched her front teeth to her bottom lip, than another eh, then she touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth. "Evan?" He was August to her. August Rush, August. The thought of being so close to someone who knew him genuinely as Evan, Evan Taylor, Evan, was vastly alarming. "Brown hair, blue eyes, dimples? Sensitive, cries a lot?"

Peter nodded, slowly, unsurely. "Why? Do you like, _know _him or something?"

Katrina, shaking, the oxygen leaving the room, took out her cell phone, and showed Peter her main screen wallpaper, a picture of her and August on their first date, the gorgeous backdrop of Central Park behind them in a rich shade of green. "August," she said slowly, as if insisting for Peter to refer to him as his new name.

He grabbed the phone from her, squinted at it in disbelief. "That--that's… that's _him_!" he cried. He acknowledged the endearing way old his friend--with a matured face and perhaps even deeper dimples than before, his hair with a tinge of wave to it, a light spattering of freckles across his cheeks that you could only notice if you looked closely enough at the blurry screen--was staring at his new friend, not at the camera. "So you two went out for a while?" he asked, shocked beyond that of what he'd experienced when he found out that Evan had _actually _found his parents. Now Evan and a _girl_.

"Still are." Katina gently took the phone back, and took one more glance the photo before closing the phone shut. She hesitantly touched the hill under her shirt, the one that was making her feel like a walking beach ball.

"You're crazy," Peter suddenly accused. "There is no possible way he…did _that _to you. No." He abruptly stood up, and began to cross the room in an angry huff. "You're lying!" he cried. "You liar. He'd never do anything like that! I _know _him." His voice broke on 'know.'

Katrina stood up, too. "I'm serious Peter. You haven't seen him in…years. He's seventeen now. Well, he was sixteen when this happened, but nonetheless. That kind of happens in the world, teenage boys and girls. Even ones we think wouldn't. That's life when…" she trailed off miserably.

"…When you're not in an orphanage," Peter finished for her, bitterly. "When you're _on the outside_. Is that what you call it? What did you _do _to him?"

"Nothing," Katrina said simply. "And he did nothing to me." She stepped closer to him, and placed her hand on his shoulder. It must be hard for him, not knowing what'd happened to his childhood friend, then all of a sudden here comes this girl that says he's the father of her baby. "I know, okay? I know. It's so exceptionally difficult to believe. He's an angel. He really is, but he hates when people say it. He's just…an angel that got some girl pregnant at sixteen." She felt tears putting that awful stinging pressure on her eyes. "Peter, we have something in common. _Someone _in common. Someone very, very special. Now, let me explain."

And she told him their story.

* * *

_A/N: Not my best stuff, but it's pretty decent, I'd say._


	19. Dosage Of Reality

_A/N: Can't decide if I like this one or not. Fast-paced, pointless, took forever. Ah, well. On with the show._

* * *

**Chapter 19: Dosage of Reality**

"Just…compose more?" Hope suggested as August moaned in frustration, mid-rant about how no one would cooperate and how he thought the world was against him to make this whole thing harder.

The two were in his room, on the top floor of his house (Hope had never seen such a beautiful, big house that was still so calm and family-like), a situation that Lyla had looked the smallest bit skeptical about. But August had insisted that _of course _Hope was just a friend and she was going to help him get his musical career jump-started again.

"Like what?" he mumbled, rubbing his forehead miserably.

"Another rhapsody, perhaps. Come on, _August's Rhapsody No. 2 _sounds so cool and irresistible." She gave him a little wink and a pat on his shoulder.

He mouthed the title over and over, testing its musical appeal alone, then slowly came 'round. "It does!" he snapped his fingers for emphasis. "And if I'm having trouble coming up with melodies…I can do like Rachmaninov's _Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini_. Just 'borrow' another composer's melody…I guess I did that in the last one, with 'Moondance'…"

Hope smirked proudly. At least she got his spirits up, his mind working towards something that may help. She tried to picture his expression when she presented him with the gift she had for him, hidden keenly away in her handbag.

"Thanks for the inspiration, Hope," he said as he began writing down ideas in one of his school notebooks. "I think I'll nix the cellos and guitars out and put some flutes and violins in there, maybe even add a piano, for some variety. And for the melody copying thing, I think I'll put in _Moonlight Sonata_, don't you think?" Hope nodded in approval.

"August?"

"Hm?" He didn't look up from his notebook and pen.

She opened her purse. August felt a big wad of soft, plush cloth being pressed into his arms. Peach-colored, with green around the edge. He unfolded it; a small, stretchy, square piece of fabric, about the size for perhaps a little girls' doll. "For you," Hope said.

"Wh--what?" What was he supposed to do with a doll blanket?

She chuckled slightly, and smacked her forehead playfully. "I mean, not you, of course, I mean…for your baby. It can be for a boy or a girl, see?" She caressed the blanket, as if to say, _Isn't it pretty! _"He or she'll really like it, it's nice and soft."

That only made him stare at it more blankly. "I--it's really nice, but…I think it might be a bit too small. It's pretty tiny." He held it out to her, as if to give it back.

Hope shook her head. "No, August. Actually, I think you're baby will have plenty of wiggle room in it at first. Babies are _really _tiny. And, you know, the church has lots of onesies and stuff if you ever need some…" Then she realized--August probably couldn't get his mind wrapped around the fact that he was having a _baby_. He hadn't even been able to witness the girl's growing bump. Now all Hope was doing was shoving the whole concept down his throat.

There was a long, contemplative pause. Finally, August said, "Thanks so much, then." His voice was hardly above a whisper, and what of it was audible, was very broken. He pressed the blanket to his chest, and closed his eyes, trying to imagine a crying, squirming little beingwrapped inside it. _His _crying, squirming little being. Would the baby have Katrina's brown eyes, or his blue, the shade of blue he'd gotten from his own father? Would the baby have his dimples, or plain cheeks like her? Brown or red hair? Straight or curly? It was so hard to imagine.

He buried his face in the blanket, so that Hope mightn't see the confused desperation written all over his expression. He breathed in the fresh, cotton-y smell of it, and tried to imagine the sweet scent of baby wash and the powdery scent of formula mixed in with it. The classic, overall baby smell.

"It's okay," Hope whispered, setting her hand on his shoulder.

Without warning, August lunged forward and caught her in an embrace. She didn't expect it, and she really didn't think he did either. She hugged him back, nonetheless. It was a wonder that, for a while, all she thought about was letting herself get romantically involved with him, but now she cared for nothing more than helping her friend find his girl and raise his baby.

"Thank you for _everything_!" he gasped into her hair.

"You're welcome for _everything_," she murmured back.

-----

Katrina fumbled with the stereo knobs in her and Aubrey's room. Her mother stood behind her, arms folded, CD in hand, smiling proudly. "I can't believe you're about to make me do this," Katrina mumbled and hit the Open button. Holly handed her daughter the CD and she slid it in. "I'm already a walking, seven-and-a-half-months-pregnant cliché."

Holly put her hands on her hips, not wavered in her beliefs. "Come on, sweetie, it'll be fun. It'll stimulate his little developing mind." Katrina slid the earphones over her growing mountain of a stomach. "I did it for you," she offered, and Katrina softened a little.

"You did?" She pictured herself as a half-formed thing flopping around inside her mom, hearing the calming melodies of this composer and that composer through the _whoosh _noise of the internal, amniotic world. The more she thought about it, the more she could picture it, and she could _really _picture Lyla doing it for August. Definitely.

Holly chuckled and replied, "Yes, dear. You were quite a fan of Beethoven. And I'm not just saying that; you really had a big kicking reaction to his infamous Third Symphony." Katrina swallowed hard. Beethoven's Third. The piece that she and August had heard playing at the hospital. The one she felt stupid for not being able to recognize. Now she felt truly stupid. As a fetus, apparently, she'd loved it. As a teenage girl, the melody stumped her.

"And what CD did you give me for this one here?" She gestured to the earphones enveloping her baby's prenatal hut.

"Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_." Holly examined the back of the CD case. "The simple, easy stuff. Harpsichords, popularly recognized melodies, etcetera. The stereotypical classical." She smiled, and Katrina was shocked at how much her mother actually knew about the world of classical music. She'd always thought that she was the family freak, the only one with a soft spot for the mostly wordless--except in the case of opera--melodies.

Maybe she could find a recording of August's Rhapsody. It might be good for the baby to recognize the music his father put forth.

There was a period of silence, as she just let her baby boy listen to the first and second movements of the _Spring_ season. Somehow, to her, it didn't feel morally right. She felt like she was imprinting him. It felt to her like she was telling her son, _be an astonishingly talented prodigy, just like Daddy, or else_. Branding him with the words "musical genius" before he was even born. But she wasn't, she was just…stimulating his brain, however weird that also sounded.

She realized: she didn't even want a musically gifted child. She'd seen how August was beginning to hate being called that. Like a freak show, like a circus act. _Son, _she thought, _please be a careless child. Play a game, draw a picture. Live normally._

"Have you thought about names yet?" Holly suddenly asked.

"What? No." She hadn't even considered it. Sure, she'd been looking around, keeping an open mind, saying, 'Hey, this would be a cute name,' but she'd never gotten serious about it.

"Oh, come on, you used to love picking out your children's names."

"That was before I got pregnant."

Holly sat down on the bed, next to Katrina, just as the frantic last movement of _Summer _began. "Well, let's talk baby names, then. _I _think you should name him after something. It'd give meaning and make it easier."

"Sure."

Katrina spent the remainder of _Autumn _and _Winter _saying 'yes' or 'no' to any potential names her mom came up with--mostly 'no.' In all truthfulness, she was waiting for August's input. Together, they'd come up with a name they could both live with.

-----

August stood, perfectly still, motionless, and silent, in his room. The world around him was perfectly still, motionless, and silent, except for the occasional twitch and hiccup from the little bundle he held in his arms. The room was cold, eerie, dim, but the infant was warm and alive. Real. It slept calmly in its peach-colored blanket, the green trim surrounding its pale, chubby face.

Something about this didn't feel right. Holding his baby, he expected, would've been so emotional and loving. But he could feel no such thing for this child. Not like he thought.

The baby opened its big, blue eyes, and made contact with the similar blue eyes of its father, before it abruptly burst into wailing. Wailing that couldn't be stopped. The screams and cries tore at August's ears. He handed his child to his mother and ran off to…he didn't know where. Just anywhere to escape that horrible crying.

Then, he found himself in an office-type room, in a dressy outfit of a nice shirt and pants, a pen in his hand. Mr. Jeffries handed him a set of papers. "All you have to do is sign here," Mr. Jeffries pointed to a line near the bottom of the paper.

The paragraph above the line read: _Parental consent for the release of child to adoption and/or placement: Signature:_…

His pen touched the line. He brought it in an upwards slant, then back down again, then joined the two slants with a horizontal line. A.

A voice stopped him. His ex-mentor at Julliard. The one with the longish gray hair with gray eyes to match, that was always there with him at practices for his rhapsody.

"August," his mentor said, clearly displeased, "do you find this piece to be beyond your abilities?" August stared at him for a moment; what was his ex-mentor doing here while he gave his baby away?…

It was then that he realized that he wasn't really there, at a social worker's office signing papers, or being chewed out by his Julliard mentor, but he was really sitting up in bed, in the dark, panting, sweating. In his hand he still clutched the empty, baby-less peach-colored blanket that Hope had given him earlier that day. He laid back down, quietly chanting to himself: "It was only a dream, it was only a dream, it was only a dream…"

He'd never, ever let his child be given away. Not after what'd happened to him.

Because he…_loved _his baby. Boy, girl, healthy, Down Syndrome, no matter what. Musical prodigy, sports star, computer nerd. No matter what.

Who needed music. Maybe, this time, things were supposed to happen differently. He would go out and physically, literally, look for her, for _them_. To hunt them down. Nothing was going to separate him from his soul mate and their baby any longer.

He also came upon the fact that this wasn't happening to him--the pregnancy in general--because he was August Rush, the weird messed up kid with an even more messed up life story. It happened because, well, he was human, as hard as that might be for some to believe, and Katrina was human. So many teenagers with normal life stories were going through the same thing--perhaps not as complicated--but nonetheless, he wasn't alone. That didn't make it okay, but it made him feel better. He didn't live to be a wondrous thing for people to stare at, but he was a normal, human teen.

August held the peach-colored blanket close to him again, and lay calmly until his breathing slowed back down and eventually he fell back to sleep.

* * *

_A/N: As usual, the final scene saves it from being completely horrid. ;-)_


	20. Authors Note, and the End

_OK. I know it has been well over a month. I know my writing has been slipping, and the quality is probably not worth much more than crap right now. _

_As I must confess, I am really tired with fanfiction right now. I attempted, as you may have read in a few author's notes at the beginning and ends of chapters, to write an original novel. That story has taken off like crazy (on page 98!) and I'm indescribably proud of it. I fell in love with the idea of my own characters, my own plot, my own world. That way I don't have to worry about keeping the personalities of characters that I didn't even bring to life in the first place. I don't have to contend with other people that somehow seem to know them more than I do, because they are _mine_. _

_However, it seems that at the expense of my rapidly growing and improving novel, this has been abandoned nearly completely. For about seven or eight months now, I've been the author that randomly popped up in the AR fanfiction section with horribly deep, morbid and grown-up plot lines that happen well after the movie ended. _

_I have written the very last chapter--I wrote it just before I wrote the second chapter as the storyline solidified itself in my head--for I am creatively unable to fill the gap between chapter 19 and the last of it. _

_Warning: it is unbelievably cliché, for I wrote it in very early March, while my idea of what is acceptable and what isn't was kind of sketchy back then. (See awful first chapters for an idea of what I'm talking about.) I went back and polished it as much as I could, gave the baby an appropriate name (the original plan was for it to be a girl but I changed my mind.) And I quickly whipped up a haphazard epilogue._

_So what happened before this was that August was back visiting at the orphanage (for whatever reason, that was where I was really having troubles) and arrive just as Katrina was heading out. He caught her at the last second. Katrina's pregnancy progressed even more, and… Here, she has just given birth:_

* * *

**Chapter 26: And Then There Was You**

Sleep seemed so hard. And yet he was drifting off. The hospital smells and sounds were oddly soothing. August's eyelids latched shut. His sleep was dreamless, and unsatisfying, for his stress levels stayed high and flying: his baby was being born just behind that door over there and before too long, perhaps even within thirty seconds, he would be a father for the rest of his life. Not what was originally part of his plan; yet it was what it was.

And it wasn't long indeed before he felt a gentle nudge poking his shoulder, shaking him out of his makeshift nap. He slowly pried his eyes open. "Wha--?"

It was Lyla. "Hey, dad." she said softly with a happy grin. "Someone wants to see you. A couple of someone-s."

August jolted awake, all of his grogginess being snuffed out like _snap_; yet he was numb on his legs. "What is it? Is she okay? Is the baby okay?" he demanded of his mother, as he walked in what seemed like triple-slow motion to the room.

"You'll see for yourself." she winked. Ugh, his mom must love torturing him today. At her son's obviously negative reaction, Lyla gave him a kiss on the forehead and declared, "Ah, he's okay. Now enough questions, go see your son."

Numb shock and gratefulness shot like lightning through his veins. "My son." he murmured absentmindedly. Lyla turned the door handle for him as it seemed his hands were too shaky to do much of anything. Inside was the most beautiful and heart wrenching sight that had ever touched August's eyes. Katrina was in the bed, breathing hard, her stomach deflated, holding a bundle in a white blanket and blue cap. Hope was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking upward with her hands folded, thanking God. A tiny hand reached up from the blanket and stayed there for a moment before laying back down. Katrina looked up, saw August standing there, distraught with all the pride in the world, and smiled at him.

"There's Daddy." she cooed excitedly to the bundle.

August sat on the edge of the bed, staring in disbelief at the baby boy. His baby boy. Katrina held the baby out to him, but he shook his head no, and held up a weak shaking arm to show her why he turned down the offer. Katrina handed the baby to Hope instead, and took August's clammy hands in hers.

"I'll leave you guys alone," Lyla said, "I'll let everyone else know." there was a calm and cinematic click of the door as Lyla gently left the room.

"I could leave, too. He is your baby," Hope offered,, handing the baby back to Katrina.

Katrina grabbed her arm. "No," she said firmly, then smiled politely. "We need you to help us name him."

Excitement crossed Hope's face. She was actually getting to help name a real _baby_! "Like, what kind of name do you want?" she asked, coming up with ideas in her mind already.

"Some kind of biblical name. I think he may need it," August said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Hope, knowing the Bible very well, took a deep breath and began, "John? Matthew? Mark? Zachary? Nathaniel? Adam? Samuel?"

"No, no, and…no," the new parents said.

"Jacob? Ethan? Solomon? Isaiah?" This time, Hope answered herself with a _no_. None of those seemed to work. Nothing seemed to keenly match the beauty of that little face, that child of August, that child of God. She went through a few more Bible names, this time she kept them to herself. _Aaron, David, Josiah, Joseph…_Then her mind clicked. She looked directly into the baby's face. She knew exactly what his name was. "I know!" she gasped.

"What is it?" Katrina asked eagerly.

"How about…" Hope paused, building on suspense. The baby's parents braced. "Joshua?"

Katrina beamed. "That's perfect," she practically squealed. "It's adorable. And he does look like a genuine, little Joshua."

"Joshua…Evan…Rush," August said softly, and got the girls' approval for the middle name. "Joshua Evan Rush," he confirmed. "That's what we'll name him."

-----

Katrina had fallen asleep, exhausted from childbirth. Lyla, Louis, and Mr. and Mrs. Von Bowen had gone home for a while to change clothes and alert everyone of the new arrival. Which meant August, who had regained full feeling in his arms, could finally be alone and hold Joshua for the first time.

He stood hesitantly over the cradle, watching his son sleep. Joshua looked so precious lying there, swaddled tightly in his blanket, the occasional twitch to his facial features. Perhaps he was dreaming. August just couldn't get it wrapped around his mind that this human being, this little _life_, was his. He shared genetics with this infant.

August reached into the cradle, lightly touching the baby's arm, caressing his soft newborn skin. August didn't know how to even pick up a baby, nonetheless hold one in his arms without making it cry.

"Forgive me if I do this wrong, Joshua," he said as he slid his hand underneath Joshua's head, and the other under his bum. "but Daddy has no idea what he's doing."

Slowly, carefully, he began to lift Joshua up, the five pounds feeling like a million. Joshua twitched and scrunched up his face, and whimpered some as if to say, "What are you doing? I was napping. Don't disturb me!" making August feel all the more nervous and clueless. But luckily with a little adjusting of his position and how he had his arms supporting the baby's body, August was able to make Joshua fit quite comfortably and naturally in the cradle of his grasp. He rocked him back and forth, swinging his hips just enough to sooth Joshua back to sleep.

August felt something in his throat, like the painful lump of an impending sob. His mouth twitched. But he realized that it wasn't at all a sob in his throat and a cry on his lips, but words. A speech. Promises to be made, vows to be given to his son.

And, although it seemed odd to him to talk to a baby in such a serious manner, he let the speech come up and out across his tongue. "Hey, Joshua… I know you probably don't understand right now but… I just wanted to say that there is no way I'm ever leaving you or Mommy. I know that's kind of uncommon with teenagers and all, but what if I'm _not _one of those silly teens that don't care about anything? I care about you, and your mommy."

He continued, "You know, growing up, every night, I would lie in bed amongst a sea of bunks and other sleeping boys and just _wish _that I could get a kiss good-night from my mom, to have my dad pull the covers up to my chin for me. I'll make sure that won't happen to you. I'll tuck you in at night. I'll stay up and comfort you when you have a nightmare. Because I never got any of that, and I never want any child anywhere to grow up without that. I'll make sure you get it."

Naturally, as predictably in character of August, the painful lump of an impending sob and a cry on his lips joined the speech, and his voice cracked on the last two sentences. A single warm, salty tear ran down his nose as he concluded, "I love you, Joshua, I love you _so much_."

Joshua's fingers were just big enough to wrap around Daddy's index finger when he held it out to him. And what beautiful fingers he did have, slender and perfectly shaped._ Musician's fingers? _August wondered.

"Hey…" a voice from afar murmured quietly. Katrina had awakened. "Finally got up the nerve to touch him, huh?" August nodded. "You boys look so cute together." She pretended not to notice that her boyfriend was crying ever so slightly as he held their son for the first time.

"You didn't hear my speech, did you?" He asked, concerned, a little bit embarrassed. He'd gotten quite personal there.

Katrina knitted her eyebrows. "What speech? Did you and Joshua hold your own private little 'fatherhood inauguration' thing?" she said, but in truth, she'd heard the whole thing, about the careless teenagers, August's woes at the orphanage…everything. And her heart melted for him; and she was sorry, despite how close she'd grown to the orphanage's faculty.

"Never mind, then. I didn't _want _you to hear it anyway." He glanced down at Joshua again, in disbelieving awe. "I feel like such a damn Hallmark movie," he chuckled, "I mean, this moment, this first moment between father and son…it's supposed to be a moment of contrast. A charismatic, rugged man with leather jacket and all, holding his little baby in a soft pastel blanket. The muscles versus the helplessness, the rough skin versus the soft newborn skin. Not really the case with me, is it? I'm not tough, I'm not rugged. Hell, I'm just as much of a baby as _he _is," he said as the waterworks started in again.

"You're not a baby, August. You're not." She wished she had the energy to get up and walk over to him, and take him in her arms. But instead she motioned for him to come over to her, and he sat next to her on the edge of her bed, just like earlier that day. "I mean, you're just…_really _sensitive. And lots of dads, even the toughest ones--the ones with the motorcycles!--cry when they hold their babies for the first time. I think my dad did. I'm sure yours would have. And," she giggled and playfully nudged him, "no offense, but I'd murder you if you wore a leather jacket."

----

**Epilogue**

"How come notes are named after letters, and not numbers?" Four-year-old Joshua asked his daddy as he carried his little violin case in one hand, and clutched his mommy's hand in his other.

August thought for a moment. "I don't know, Joshie," he said finally, giving up. "Maybe because you use numbers when counting beats, and since you're already using numbers, they--the people who decided these things, whoever they were--thought you should use letters, too."

Katrina and August were bringing their son--who had August's brown straight hair but Katrina's brown eyes--to his very first violin lesson with the greatest teacher they could find: Aiden. Aiden was now only sixteen, but was excelling as fast as a teen who went to normal high school could. He was scheduled to make his debut with the Philharmonic the next month.

Aiden greeted them with cheer at the front door to his parents' apartment.

"All ready for your lesson?" he asked Joshua.

"Yup." Joshua showed him his copy of the Suzuki Violin School Book 1. "And I already know how to hold the bow!" he declared proudly.

Katrina stood back and watch as her little boy scratched away at _Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star_ like a pro. Pro, but not prodigy. And that's what she wanted for him, what she'd always wanted for him, even when he was a squirming thing inside her belly, kicking away to _Spring _from _The Four Seasons._ Music would be very thickly present in his blood, but he would lead a normal life.

She smiled at August, and grabbed his hand.

This is what they wanted for their baby.

* * *

_After much thought, I just decided to just name the baby after violinist Joshua Bell (whom, I will shamelessly admit, I have a gigantic crush on) for I couldn't think of anything I liked better, that was musical without being too foreign. It was really fast, I know, and I really trippd and fell at the end. I just lost commitment. Thanks to all who have stuck with me (Most sincerely to Zombie's Run This Town, DivinitasIntereo, and Lilliana256) and reviewed. There will be a link to my FictionPress where you can find the novel that has swallowed all my writing time up at. Thanks again, and good bye ---Roxxi May_


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